Day: July 6, 2024

Двум пассажирам удалось самостоятельно доплыть до берега.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to gain noticeable traction in the wake of President Biden’s catastrophic debate fallout against former President Trump.

Biden’s widely panned performance in Atlanta gave Kennedy a potential in as he looks to draw support from both top candidates’ voters for his third-party presidential bid.

But as bad as things have been for Biden, Kennedy is also facing challenges. He didn’t get much of a polling bump this week and was the subject of a report in Vanity Fair that outlined allegations of sexual assault, which he did not deny. 

“If RFK Jr. was a truly viable candidate, he’d be making a credible push to supplant Biden as the main alternative to Trump,” said Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst and managing editor at the forecasting outfit Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “Clearly that is not happening in the slightest and to the extent he’s making news, it’s bad news.”

Another instance of bad news for Kennedy came Friday, when he posted online that he “won’t take sides” on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Kennedy soon clarified that he was responding to a report on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that raised speculation about possible Saudi involvement in the al Qaeda attacks, but the remarks drew attention over perceived echoes of long-running conspiracy theories about 9/11.

Democrats have long criticized Kennedy over various conspiracy theories, from spreading widely disproven claims about the damaging effects of vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic to wifi’s link to cancer. And members of the party were quick to seize on the candidate’s latest remarks.

Brandon Weathersby, who oversees communications for presidential campaigns at American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC, suggested Kennedy was implicating the U.S. government in the 9/11 attacks, adding that there “are few conspiracy theories that RFK Jr. won’t repeat.”

“Whether it’s about Americans dying at the hands of a terrorist attack or a global pandemic, RFK Jr. will parrot any conspiracy theory he thinks will bring him attention and dollars,” Weathersby said. “His rhetoric is as harmful as it is offensive and he cannot lead the country as president.” 

It’s the latest indication that even as Biden’s fate remains in limbo, Kennedy is continuing to struggle in his efforts to become a truly viable candidate.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released in the days after the Atlanta debate showed Kennedy at 8 percent support in the race, which is also where he is in an aggregate of surveys from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).

“Think about what a horrible week Biden has had,” Kondik said. “But RFK [Jr.] does not seem to be benefiting at all, and certainly no bona fide Democrat is thinking of backing RFK Jr. as an alternative to the Democratic nominee.”

Democrats are torn over whether they think Biden should continue to seek a second term in the White House; three House lawmakers called for him to step down. Those pleas come as longtime strategists, pollsters and even some of his former opponents from 2020 have also urged the 81-year-old incumbent to resign.

Beyond Biden, Democrats are also skeptical that Vice President Harris can beat Trump in the swing states that will determine the outcome. Despite a recent CNN poll showing Harris running against Trump with a tighter margin that Biden, she is nonetheless also trailing Trump in most battleground polls.

But as Democrats’ disarray plays out publicly, Kennedy also seems to be struggling. The bad press hasn’t helped him create a contrast between Biden’s age problems and Trump’s convicted felony.

Some prominent voices in the party faithful have become particularly fearful that Kennedy — a member of their team as recently as October — could spoil the election, which many fear will result in a second Trump win. But as demonstrated this week, Kennedy has his own potential liabilities.

“I’ve said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy,” Kennedy said in an appearance on the YouTube series “Breaking Points” about the Vanity Fair article, which said that he inappropriately groped a woman who was his babysitter. “I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have … so many skeletons in my closet, that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

Kennedy did not expand on the sexual assault claim, and he called the article “a lot of garbage.”

Responses like that, as well as his failure to make notable gains in polling, have reassured some Democrats.

“What you have seen the last few weeks is exactly what many of us have been saying for a while, the more voters hear about Kennedy the less they are going to like him,” said Doug Gordon, a Democratic strategist. 

“When a graphic and disturbing photo comes out of you eating a dog and it is not even the worst story about you that week, that’s not a good week,” Gordon said, referring to a separate part in the article that showed Kennedy appearing to eat an animal carcass, which Vanity Fair reported was an apparent dog. Kennedy denied the claim, insisting it was a goat and that the photo had been taken while he was in Patagonia.

Kennedy’s standing with the public has not been where it should be for a serious contender about four months from Election Day, experts say. He did not get to 15 percent in the four polls CNN set as a threshold for the debate, meaning he wasn’t able to appear on stage with Biden and Trump. And it’s not clear he will even appear on most ballots in November.

According to his campaign website’s ballot tracker, Kennedy still needs some two dozen states before he reaches his goal of 50 states, and most secretaries of state have yet to certify his submissions. The Hill/DDHQ confirmed he has made the ballot in six states.

“While the presidential race is at [a] critical and fluid moment when it comes to Trump and Biden, one truth remains — Kennedy has no path to winning,” Gordon said. “And as this week has proven, he has plenty from his past that is beyond disqualifying.”

washington — The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on what appears to be a nondescript door and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?” 

The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open, and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause. 

Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.  

They have been growing vegetables, conducting “Marswalks,” and operating under what NASA terms “additional stressors,” such as communication delays with “Earth,” including their families; isolation and confinement.  

It’s the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder, but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.  

“Hello. It’s actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you,” Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh. 

“I really hope I don’t cry standing up here in front of all of you,” Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone, and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.  

The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D-printed, 160-square-meter facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm for growing food. 

An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their “Marswalks,” though it is still covered rather than being open air. 

“They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performance … as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet,” Steve Koerner told the crowd. Koerner is the deputy director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. 

“I’m very appreciative,” he added. 

This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog. 

A yearlong mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm. 

Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime towards the end of the 2030s. 

BARINAS, Venezuela — The chant is concise, but meaningful for millions of Venezuelans in 2024: “Freedom!”

The calls for “libertad” have been a staple of the opposition’s events ahead of the highly anticipated July 28 presidential election. With the official start of campaigns this week, they were deafening during a massive rally Saturday in the western Venezuelan state of Barinas, the home state of the late fiery President Hugo Chávez.

Students, state employees, retirees, agriculture workers and business owners were among the thousands gathered in support of Edmundo González Urrutia, the only candidate with a real chance of ending President Nicolás Maduro’s quest for a third term. Their chants, collectively, represent long-sought freedom from the 25-year rule of self-described socialist governments. Individually, people are seeking wide-ranging freedoms, including the freedom to post government criticisms on social media without fearing repercussions.

“I want economic freedom, freedom of purchasing power, freedom of a living wage,” Virginia Linares, 41, said with teary eyes. “We feel locked in, we feel like something is being taken away from us because a salary that is not decent is a salary that overshadows us as people, we do not achieve the things we want, our dreams.”

Public employees these days earn a monthly minimum wage of about $3.60 plus $130 in bonuses, while private-sector workers make on average $210 a month. Neither is enough for a family to buy a basic basket of goods, which costs about $380.

Linares lost her beauty supply store in 2017 in the social, economic and political crisis that has marked the entirety of Maduro’s 11-year presidency. Her business is now online only, and her concerns over the country’s economic conditions have increased now that her 17-year-old son has finished high school and is thinking about his future.

The July 28 election is shaping up to be the biggest challenge that Venezuela’s ruling party has faced since Chávez became president in 1999. The party wants to maintain its absolute control for six more years, but its base, even in Barinas, is divided and disenchanted over the crisis.

The state had long been a bastion of the late president’s movement, Chavismo. His brothers, Argenis Chávez and Adán Chávez, and father, Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, all served stints as governor from 1998 to 2021. The opposition ended the Chávezes reign and has since used that victory as motivation for its base.

Chávez, elected in 1998, promised to improve the lives of Venezuela’s poorest using the country’s oil. He expanded social services, including housing and education thanks to the country’s oil bonanza, which generated revenues estimated at some $981 billion between 1999 and 2011 as oil prices soared.

But corruption, a decline in oil production and economic policies led to a crisis that became evident in 2012. Before Chávez’s death of cancer in 2013, he picked Maduro as his successor.

Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela have fended off challenges by barring rivals from elections and painting them as out-of-touch elitists in league with foreign powers. This time, their government control led to a court ruling blocking the candidacy of opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado, who won the October primary of the Unitary Platform coalition with more than 90% of support.

She has thrown her support behind González, a former ambassador who’s never held public office. At opposition rallies, including Saturday’s, people say they will undoubtedly vote for González but also acknowledge that it is Machado who they see as leader.

Venezuela’s crisis has motivated more than 7.7 million people to migrate. When González asked the crowd to raise their hand if one of their relatives had migrated, people were quick to react. He promised them to create conditions so that their loved ones can return.

Miguel Herrera, a school handyman, is worried that his teenage daughters might end up migrating in a few years if Maduro is reelected. He thinks that just as Barinas ushered the opposition into the governor’s office, voters across the country can get González elected later this month.

His chants for freedom Saturday were for a change that would give his children the freedom to choose to stay in Venezuela. He also wants his rights to quality health care and other public services to be respected.

“I don’t want my daughters to go somewhere else, at all,” said Herrera, who voted for Maduro in the past two elections. “Politicians made promises and they didn’t deliver and people began to wake up until they opened their eyes. We need change.”