Richard Booth

An article about the book: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/11/trump-family-members-secret-service It said this: "the president did repeatedly seek to remove Secret Service staff he deemed to be overweight or too short for the job." “I want these fat guys off my detail,” Trump is reported to have said, possibly confusing office-based personnel with active agents. “How are they going to protect me and my family if they can’t run down the street?” LOL

"he complained about agents drinking on the job, chasing women and showing up unfit for duty." I wonder if Carol Leonnig interviewed him for her book about the Secret Service, given that book is largely about things like agents drinking on the job, partying with hookers and being unfit for duty.

Her book sounds interesting. I read in the description that it will cover "a hobbled agency that’s in desperate need of reform" and I could not help but be reminded of the numerous embarrassing news reports about the Secret Service that I have read over the past decade or so. Drunk agents found passed out on the street. Agents involved with cocaine and hookers in South American countries. People getting into the White House when Obama was in office. Just embarrassing stuff.

It is possible he might have been on that end of political blackmail. I also wonder if perhaps his revulsion for Hoover was related to Hoover's pretty well known sexuality. It could have been that too.

He is quoting from one of his earlier articles. It is in the body of the main text and the link to Unz's earlier article is hyperlinked here https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-jfk-assassination-part-ii-who-did-it/ Here is a screenshot. I don't need any detailed "historical essays" -- I know a neo-N a z i when I see one The fact that he reposts Daily Stormer pieces is proof enough. We don't have to agree on this, I don't care if you don't believe it. I am satisfied that what I'm seeing is what it appears to be.

This piece: https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-mossad-assassinations/ by Ron Unz January 27, 2020 "nor does his very comprehensive index include any entry for “Jews” "Stone’s book, while fearlessly convicting President Lyndon Johnson of the JFK assassination, also strangely excludes “Jews" "Douglass’s book follows this same pattern." The guy is a crackpot in my opinion. The Unz Review website has a crapton of neo-poopoo stuff on it republished from The Daily Stormer...

Possibly he was, I haven't read enough about him to get a good feel for what kind of person he was other than he seemed to strongly dislike J. Edgar Hoover.

Based on what is in Summers' book, Truman seemed to be revolted by J. Edgar Hoover bringing nasty sex stuff and dirt to him. There was a quote something along the lines of "get that crap out of here!" I think he was "more honest" than most, but that he lacked some level of introspection or enlightenment. Not a simpleton, but not very deep either.

Joe Rogan clip about the JFK assassination: Rogan goes out of his way to defend the Single Bullet Theory and he also supports the Alvarez Jet Effect in laymen's terms. However, he does talk about CE399 and is pretty adamant that bullets that hit bone don't come out looking like CE399. Shermer tries to go the 'factoid' route by saying "we're kind of getting into the reeds here" to which Rogan replies fairly "no, just the bullet."

The only mistake that I remember offhand is he referred to the HT/LINGUAL program as CI/PROJECT. I suspect that he forgot the cryptonym when writing and he used CI/PROJECT as a placeholder, intending to go back and fix it, and missed doing that. I noticed he also had a regular habit of writing about cryptonyms wrong. For example, if he was talking about "ZR/RIFLE" he would call it "RIFLE" or if he was talking about "QJ/WIN" he'd say "WIN" leaving out the first part of the digraph. Then there were matters of factual error that I came across. The one good thing in Morley's book is he goes into additional detail about Angleton's support for the nuclear fissile material diversion program that was illegally transferring nuclear material from NUMEC to Israel for Dimona.

I think that David Talbot's books are pretty good in some ways but not perfect, certainly not overly critical and seemingly incomplete in some respects. They're merely "okay" at the end of the day. I think the same thing about Jefferson Morley -- indeed, I found a number of mistakes in his book on Angleton, The Ghost, and took about two pages of notes. Regarding the Unz Review piece that complained the books don't have "the Jews" in the index - any person who complains that a book doesn't have "the Jews" in the index is clearly a nutcase. And most of the pieces I have read on Unz review were written by nutcases. Half of the pieces there were republished from The Daily Stormer, which is a poopoo website. I wonder what level of lack of self awareness it requires for a person to complain that a book's index doesn't have "Jews" in it and not realize that they're not going to find that in an Index unless it's a book published by the Liberty Lobby or William Pierce's National Alliance. Or maybe the reviewers over at Unz know that they're Nazis and only pretend like they aren't.

It was great.

Spotify has deleted about 20 episodes of Joe Rogan's podcast. His episode with Oliver Stone was great, and Joe was respectful to him. However, Joe is a very mixed bag on all kinds of subjects. I've seen him buy into total baloney, and I've also seen him be unreasonably skeptical (ala Hoch) when it's not warranted, for no other reason than he seemed to want to emulate his frequent guest and friend Dr. Michael Shermer. I think there is a good chance that Rogan would take a very skeptical position on JFK, but what's a bigger issue is that Rogan is not well versed in the subject or history in general so there would be a great deal of "explaining" required to fill in the background. It's basically out of his league. Joe also has a very superficial understanding of history yet talks about things as if he's an expert. For example, on one show he said that JFK "bought the vote in Chicago" -- repeating the now-conventional MSM meme that JFK stole the election in 1960 and he'll tout that as if it's fact with no skepticism at all. I don't remember what particular episode this was but he talked about JFK for a minute or two and essentially regurgitated the Seymour Hersh stuff. However ... it would probably still be a great opportunity, and Joe might be interested if he watched Destiny Betrayed. That is, if any of us ever get to watch it.

I would like to take the time to remind folks that John McAdams' primary method of discourse online involved throwing around ad-hominem personal attacks on people. McAdams' legacy will always be that of the guy who called those who disagreed with him "crackpots" and "buffs" while doing away with facts he didn't want to address by calling them "factoids" which was a clever way of denoting some facts as less-factual, or perhaps relevant, than others. This style works very well when preaching to the choir, or perhaps persuading a person on the fence who is easily persuaded by less than scholarly methods. That is John McAdams. He was all about below-the-belt discourse and rarely if ever about being intellectually honest, much less carrying on in a respectful manner. I talk about all of this because I believe it's important to examine the ways in which people communicate to get across their message, as one thing I have learned in my life is that it's very often not what you say, but how you say it. McAdams' behavior on the JFK subject carried over into his conduct as a professor, showing that his chosen method of discourse wasn't one limited to the JFK case. For example, at least three times McAdams took to publishing on his blog the full name, contact information, and sometimes employment information relating to students that McAdams had a disagreement with. In doing so, his like-minded followers and blog readers could (and did) then harass those students. I've seen the same thing on some in the far-left, who also like to "out" people they disagree with by posting personal details and employment information in an apparent attempt to cause grief for their chosen target. It's a real shame when this is the approach taken by people who have some kind disagreement with another person, and I believe that doing this sort of thing reveals a character flaw in a person. Having said all of this, my point is that we should not get too distracted on this thread by anyone who wants to derail the subject of discussing John McAdams into instead discussing inconsequential, unimportant, and meaningless debates about the merits of one conspiracy theory or another. The best use of this thread is to discuss McAdams and his legacy. His online posts will be there for future students to take note of, and the way in which McAdams comported himself online will always be there for everyone to see. Serious students--those without an emotional attachment to the subject and no interest in playing internet keyboard games--will always see McAdams and his followers' tactics and it is those very tactics that will sway people away from McAdams' arguments. In that way, McAdams' "style" is counterproductive to convincing others that his position is correct. In some ways, then, McAdams' style is in fact what was *great* about John. To his fans, he gave them the spiteful and and mean-spirited tone they relish. Meanwhile, for serious thinkers who are interested only in thoughtful and respectful discourse, it provided a red-flag that signals to us that he was not to be taken seriously. One of my favorite reviews of McAdams' books comes from Dr. David Mantik. Mantik notes that although title and supposed central thesis to McAdams book is about thinking critically, McAdams ironically fails to do that because "he uses the standard tools of manipulation and commits a variety of crimes against logic—the straw man, the invalid analogy, begging the question, special pleading, the false dichotomy, and the moving goalpost." Check out Mantik's review (link below) for a nicely documented example of how McAdams decided to write a book about critical thinking by using common obstacles to critical thinking: https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/mcadams-john-jfk-assassination-logic-how-to-think-about-claims-of-conspiracy-1

What I wrote was clearly about John McAdams, I identified him by name and I highlighted a few things he liked to do. I noticed that you had brought up a fallacy of logic that McAdams frequently used, and I wanted to chime in to note that it was one of his tactics given this thread is about McAdams. That you would prefer instead to engage in a pointless back and forth about something else entirely is your right, but I'm not going to play that game. This will be the second time that I have had to clarify my comments were about John McAdams and I won't make any additional statements about it.

The reviewer complains that David Talbot's books don't have "Jews" listed in the index. That's a telling complaint.

I have no interest in talking to you about any of your points and you mistakenly think that is what I was doing. What I was doing was talking about John McAdams, which is the subject of this thread. I don't care what you say to your "opponent" and have zero interest in participating in that discussion.

Ah, the good ole' "McAdams Special" as I like to call it. Deign your opponent a crackpot buff and move along. If your opponent brings up the facts again, deem it a "factoid" and move along.

And the postal money order that supposedly paid for the rifle was never deposited. No bank stamps on the money order. Then there are other suspicious details concerning that money order including the serial number on it and when it had to have been issued compared to when it was supposed to have been used. Then you have the fact that the person who comes forward with the money order is the wrong person. It's some guy at the National Archives. If I send a money order to someone, it would receive banking stamps on it when it passed through the banking system and was deposited, and it most certainly would not magically transfer itself out of the hands of the bank and into the hands of someone at the national archives. Arguing with these people is a waste of time, Jim.

No doubt about it. Donald Trump never said anything that was thoughtful. He had the mentality of a 4th grader and regularly was intentionally spiteful and provocative.

Don't forget to mention this was a pattern, that he did this to three students. If someone, any student, disagreed with him he posted their name, position and personal information on his website for his followers to harass. I believe that Abbate was the third student he did this to. It was a pattern for him, something that the school considered when taking action against him. It might also be worth nothing his creation of a lexicon of derogatory terms to use to characterize critics and historians and facts inconvenient to him: "buffs" "crackpot" and "factoid" -- all within the realm of ad-hominem, his refuge when he could not win with facts. Mantik's review of McAdams' book laid out the plethora of logical fallacies in McAdams' book that might be worth your revisiting when you make your notes for the show. Mantin did very well in that review in showing the faulty reasoning he used. Let us never lose sight of the fact that he relied upon logical fallacy in debates and arguments, which essentially tells us he had no way to win in a debate without resorting to intellectually disingenuous methods.

Hi Calvin, That editorial would be published in the Washington Post on December 22, 1963. Truman began writing it a week after JFK was murdered. Additionally, none other than Allan Dulles visited with Truman in April of 1964, while he was on the Warren Commission, where he tried to get Truman to retract the editorial! I think it's only a clue in the very vaguest sense of the word, but I do believe we can probably deduce that Truman probably had some suspicions! I have a little bit of newfound respect for Truman after having read Summers' Official and Confidential, the biography of J. Edgar Hoover. In addition to Truman's respectable op-ed against the agency, he took a moral stand against another reprehensible institution: respectably, Truman refused to participate in J. Edgar Hoover's illegal dirt-gathering and or to use Edgar's files to blackmail people for the President. Out of all the Presidents, only two found Edgar's methods repugnant and corrupt (which they were): JFK, and Truman. As a result of Truman failing to conspire with Edgar or use his dirt, during Truman's tenure, Edgar was fearful for his position. Thus, Edgar exerted significant behind-the-scenes support for Thomas Dewey when he ran against Truman in '48 and provided Dewey with material from his files. Of course, Truman did decide to drop those two nuclear weapons on Japan which I believe was abominable and wrong. This just proves to me how flawed people are. Truman was on the right side against the CIA and in not cooperating with Edgar Hoover, but on a very wrong side in deciding to immolate two large civilian population centers.

On the Wikipedia entry for Sammy Davis Jr, it says that JFK would not allow Davis to perform at his inauguration because Davis was black and married to a white woman. On the Wikipedia entry for John F. Kennedy, it says that JFK increased soldiers in Vietnam. Wikipedia contributes to the posthumous assassination of JFK.

Litwin really does a number on the Kohn identification on his blog. He reproduces the memo. First, he suggests that Kohn got the notion that Shaw is Bertrand from the newspaper. However, his suggestion is intellectually disingenuous. He does not cite a footnote or specific example of anything in the newspaper that identified Shaw as Bertrand, and keep in mind that the time of the Kohn memo, Shaw had not been arrested yet. What Litwin does here is suggest that the newspapers in New Orleans were full of libel, innuendo and rumor without any citations to back that up. Then, as an example, Litwin weakly says that an article from the time period "mentioned Bertrand." But that isn't the same thing as the newspaper saying that Shaw is Bertrand. Yet Litwin wants us to think it is, and moreso, he wants us to believe that Kohn got this from the un-cited nonexistent newspaper articles that Litwin suggests were there. Then, he suggests that Kohn did not even believe what he told the FBI! Ths, in spite of what is written about Kohn in the FBI memo. Litwin ultimately concludes by saying "I can ensure you that he [Kohn] never believed that Shaw was Bertrand." It takes a special kind of mental gymnastics examine an FBI document where Kohn identifies Shaw as Bertrand and to then conclude that "well, Kohn never believed that." Somehow, Litwin knows what Kohn is thinking. That's an amazing power for a writer to have, if only all of us could enter the thoughts of people merely by looking at documents. This is a problem that plagues Litwin's writing, as in his books he tries to tell us Jim Garrison's mindset, and what Garrison was thinking. Evidently Litwin has special mental powers. Litwin also evidently knows, by some special process heretofore unseen to us, that Kohn was lying to the FBI about something which he did not know. Isn't that special? https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-the-fbi-know-that-shaw-was-bertrand

Thanks for the heads-up! My favorite films are ones based on true stories. Some better than others of course. I recently watched a German language film called Balloon -- was based on the true story of a family who escaped East Germany using a hot air balloon. Was good.