Former presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr decries ‘weaponization of our government’ over 1994 incident

Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that he is being investigated by federal authorities for collecting the head from a decapitated whale carcass.

During a campaign event on Saturday for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, in Glendale, Arizona, the former independent presidential candidate said: “I received a letter from the National Marine Fisheries Institute saying that they were investigating me for collecting a whale specimen 20 years ago.”

Reports of the decapitation caught the attention of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, which called on federal authorities to investigate Kennedy. In a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the environmental group said Kennedy “violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and possibly the Endangered Species Act, by illegally cutting the head off of a dead whale in or around 1994 in Hyannis Point, Massachusetts, and bringing it to his New York house”.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      40
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      What’s crazier is I’m pretty sure he just started talking about it…

      Like, it wasn’t a scandal that came out.

      RFK jr just casually told someone in an interview one time he found a dead whale on a beach. So he did the common sense thing: got a chainsaw out of his minivan, cut the head off, strapped it to the minivan, then drove home so he could “study” it.

      Pretty sure it’s because he just brought up dumping the dead bear in Central Park, and when people said that was weird, RFK told the whale story to make the bear story seem normal?

      I don’t know, you’d have to ask the worm why RFK thought any of this was interview material.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        33
        ·
        2 months ago

        I believe it was his daughter recounting the story in an interview. She talked about how grossed out she was sitting in the back seat while decomposition juices trickled into the car.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          19
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          She and the rest of the family he took with him for no good reason had to wear tarps with breathing holes to stop the, as she called it, “whale juice” from getting all over them.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              ·
              2 months ago

              Right? I went on some bad family trips, but I never had to deal with whale juice because my lawyer dad wants to study a whale skull.

          • Badabinski@kbin.earth
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            2 months ago

            what the fuck

            What is it with this fucking man and disgusting dead animals‽ Like, this was before the brain worm started driving ffs! I really thought the brain worm was the reason this dude was so fucking crazy, but apparently not! It must be Rosemary Kennedy’s ghost, tormenting the family for what they did.

            EDIT: Jesus I just can’t get over this. They’re dead man you don’t have to fuck with them just leave them alone and enjoy your time on the beach with your family or in Central Park throwing dirt clods at the drifters like you want to

            just don’t fucking touch the dead animals anymore

            EDIT: I’ve done some more research and have learned a few things

            1. the US education system sucks at telling recent history because i just learned about RFK’s assassination
            2. maybe he’s all crazy and fucked up because his uncle and dad were assassinated when he was 9 and 14
            3. maybe he’s all crazy and fucked up because he was doing fucking heroin from the age of 15 (jesus what does that do to a developing brain)
            4. maybe he’s all crazy and fucked up because his family was probably neglectful (and possibly abusive) as hell because he certainly acted like a neglected and spoiled teenager (he was suspected of committing a bunch of crimes and shit with other kids)

            like, I just want to understand what his fucking problem is. It was easy when it was the brain worm. I view him as a bit dangerous which is probably why I’m latching onto this and trying to understand his motivations. Dangerous people are easier to handle emotionally if you know why they’re dangerous and what they want.

            • Asidonhopo@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              2 months ago

              Yeah when you consider who he’s related to and what he’s been through he seems almost well-adjusted. Coulda turned out a lot crazier for sure. I mean they pretty much tried to create an American royal family, look at the results from history in that kind of aggressive human experimentation, could have been a lot worse. Better luck next time, Bene Gesserits.