Paul Brancato

I recall Mark Lane early on (1964) that he had interviewed DP witnesses who’d had their films taken and never returned. 

I read that he made a deal and plead guilty in return. I’ve heard he’s in poor health. Hope he recovers. My first thought was that the next news on him would be about his death. 

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul, when someone quotes CV I have to read his junk, which proves to me all over that he is not worth reading.

Rubbish. I would rather not vote for anyone than vote for Trump.

This is a see-through attempt to politicize a legal issue for his own personal agenda.

PS I just got a message from Mark.  He is getting closer for Napolitano.

 

I get it. It’s just so tiresome. And I have even at times really appreciated his posts, and would still love to have a drink with him and Cory. And you know I’ve had a few disagreements with you too, but never to the level of disparagement. I’m still hopeful for a lunch sometime. 

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Paul, I hope you re-viewed the Steven Greer/Willaim Pawelec "Disclosure Project" interview I posted again.

Where Pawelec states what's possibly "going on in the real world all around us?"

I watched it. Wasn’t he implying that our enemies were earthly? 
it appears that the interview took place in early 2000’s. At the very end he talks about the debates between Gore and Bush and bemoans the fact that there were 3 other candidates not invited to participate in any of the 3 presidential debates that year. 

The obvious question for me is when will the media ask Biden the same question? 

19 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I call 'em like I see 'em.  Before Jim (thankfully) put me on ignore he accused me of having a sinister "agenda" every time I disagreed with him about anything.

His apparent endorsement of Trump's candidacy over the JFK files is blinkered.

Would you care to quote a relevant passage on this thread or in the article that reads like a trump endorsement by Jim? 

52 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

The naivete reflected in this article is stunning.  Anyone who thinks Trump has the capacity to grasp any issue beyond a third grade level hasn't been paying attention.  Is he for real?  Gimme a break!

Trading release of the JFK files for a Christian Fascist dictatorship isn't such a hot deal, is it?

His minions have attempted to co-opt "anti-establishment" movements.  The Libertarians shut him down.  Punk rockers like Green Day shut him down.  Only in the JFKA Critical Community has MAGA made in-roads.

The Libertarians and punk rocks are made of 

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mark is one of the leading attorneys on the JFK Records Act, it was he who discovered the whole key strategy devised by DOJ lawyer Curtis Gannon to dodge the import of the act.

He now chimes in on what can be done in the presidential campaign to make this an issue. Which is should be.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jfk-records-release-trump-at-it-again-is-he-for-real-this-time

Thanks Jim. Nice to have a detailed accounting. Cliff never misses a chance with you, but I do agree that Trump won’t do it either. 

Thanks Ben. Chris - great experience. 
It really saddened me to listen to this, knowing that the interview was on KPFK. In the years since the silence on the assassination on those radio stations is deafening. How does one account for it? 

Thanks Ben - I’ll listen 

From NPR I’ve come not to expect anything better. What I don’t get is why Pacifica and their affiliates like KPFA avoid JFK. I suppose over the years there’s been a kind of takeover there too. I’ve never heard Talbot, or Peter Dale Scott on their airwaves, though at one time or another they have been.  But I did hear Judyth Vary Baker. Go figure. They have a blind spot when it comes to JFK, similar to Noam Chomsky. And they are vehemently and rabidly anti RFK Jr. 

I like the word ‘coalition’ in this context. 

Certainly a good book with some previously unknown material, such as his interview with Tippit’s father.

8 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Paul,

    In retrospect,  I regret ever starting this thread.

    I was surprised when I saw this series of scurrilous JFK headline news stories in the Daily Mail, and they seemed newsworthy for the JFK forum.

    The author, Maureen Callahan, apparently worked as a right-wing propagandist for Rupert Murdoch, for years, at the NY Post.

     So, this may simply be more of the usual anti-liberal yellow journalism in a right-wing rag.

Very nice of you to say, sorry I was a bit rough. 

On 6/15/2024 at 6:12 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Smearing RFK, Jr.?

Well ain’t this grand? Robert Morrow sent out his email blurb on the same book and I responded by telling him to take me off his email list, to which I politely agreed. And here he is smearing Junior. I’ll tell you what, I find this far more offensive than Ben repeating his support for him. The book is a smear. Whether it’s part of some orchestrated campaign I don’t know, but when I asked what you thought, since you bought it up, you said maybe it’s to smear Junior. Passing it along, like Robert Morrow did and you as well, makes me wonder if your dual disdain for Junior clouds your judgements as to what is worthy of sharing. 

2 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Not quite right, Kirk.   

The Daily Mail is a right-wing tabloid that often features slanted, derogatory stories about liberals, including Americans.

It's like a cross between Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and David Pecker's National Enquirer.

So, money isn't necessarily their main motive in running these lurid Callahan stories about JFK, Jackie, and RFK.

IMO, there's something political going on with these derogatory, lead JFK stories.

After all, Lord Rothermere could, doubtless, make similar money publishing lurid stories about the sex lives of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.

Why not a series of lurid, front-page feature articles about Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal, Epstein Island, and Melania's nude photos?

The Stormy Daniels news is contemporary.

JFK's sex life ended more than 60 years ago.

So what’s your theory? Why now? 

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ron,

    On the bright side, Maureen Callahan's new computer-freezing Daily Mail articles about JFK's murder and sex life include lots of lurid, historical photos.

    And you can get up to date on the latest J-Lo, Ben Affleck, and Prince Harry dirt without even changing websites!

     My question about Callahan's new JFK book, Ask Not, is "Why now?"

     A Daily Mail specialty is smearing "liberals," but why are they smearing JFK in the summer of 2024?

Yes indeed why now? One might also ask why are you posting this now? 

11 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Paul,

      No false equivalence, please.

     Aren't you forgetting about January 6th, Fox News Propaganda, Citizens United, Shelby v. Holder, and the "Starve-the-Beast" GOP stealth agenda to de-fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, in order to pay for the 2001/2003/2017 Bush/Trump tax cuts for billionaires?

     Which partisan media "bubble" actively promoted Trump's 2020 Stop-the-Steal scam?

     Which party voted, repeatedly, after 2010 to abolish Obamacare?

     Which party actually passed a House budget bill in 2011 abolishing Medicare for future retirees-- and replacing it with an inadequately funded Paul Ryan Voucher Care plan?

     Which party voted to abolish the Obamacare individual mandate in December of 2017, along with mandated cuts in Medicare and Medicaid funding?

     I agree with you about the military industrial complex, but let's give Biden and the Democrats some credit for at least bringing down the costs of some critically important pharmaceuticals-- including insulin and inhalers.

     Meanwhile, the GOP has fought tooth-and-claw to block legislation empowering Medicare to negotiate for lower pharmaceutical costs!

     There is no meaningful equivalence between the 21st century Koch/Trump GOP and the Democratic Party.

      That's a myth engendered by MAGA propagandists.

     

As usual though you missed my point. Isn’t there a biblical quote that applies? I always feel like you think it necessary to educate me and everyone else on how awful the Republican agenda is. I want to clean up the Democratic Party. Roughly 12% of Americans have diabetes. Look no further to understand why we have bad health outcomes here. Lowering the price of insulin is good and necessary, and should be done for all Americans not just ones on Medicare. More importantly we never ask why they are ill. This is where both parties fail us. They are both in the pockets of corporations, and all the Democrats ever do is work around the margins. Until we have drastic change we will have a declining life expectancy, poor public education, and a host of other problems I don’t need to enumerate. In order to get from here to there we will have to eliminate the  sharp divisions among us and find common ground. So I stand by what I said. Tolerance is the first step to bridging the divide. Americans of all stripes agree on many of the issues that plague us, but the duopoly has failed us over and over. 
As a small experiment I recently told my FB friends that I was anti abortion and pro choice. Is that so hard to understand? Apparently yes. But it’s an attempt to bridge an ever widening divide. Pro choice people are on the right side of history, but that cannot be read as ‘pro abortion’. Who in their right minds is pro abortion? 

What ever happened to tolerance? I used to defend the left when they were being accused of intolerance and elitism. What I think happened is that lefties took the bait from an almost intransigent and intolerant Right and became that which they had always proudly claimed they weren’t - intolerant. The Democrats now live in a bubble of their own making, as if that was an appropriate and effective response to the right wing bubble machine. Well, if you are making billions off the military industrial war machine, the pharmaceutical complex (not to be confused with good health), Silicon Valley hi tech AI, the international banking cartel,  the the last thing you want is congressional interference, good affordable education and housing , effective health care. You want your adversaries embroiled in divisive rhetoric. But if you’re a thinking citizen you want to find common ground. Know your enemy - it’s not the Trump supporter next door. 

17 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Pay attention Ben.  For reasons unknown to me I am no longer a moderator.  That's been in effect a few days now.  Feel free to put me on ignore.  I don't ignore anybody, I've learned to skip or skim through the posts of some, more especially the long and/or repetitive ones.  This is a debate forum after all, not a lecture hall.

Unknown reasons - what’s that about? 

So Democrats were, perhaps still are, giving financial support to right wing extremists figuring they’d be easier to beat than centrists. Who defines who is a stalking horse, the candidate, or the cynical donators to their campaigns? It’s horrible to smear Cornel West or RFK Jr in this way. 
the best antidote to lies is truth, not censorship. 

6 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Paul,

     I was a fan of James DiEugenio's scholarly work-- and a donor to his excellent K&K website-- long before he achieved notoriety through his film with Oliver Stone.

     And Jim and I have occasionally discussed the history of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era, including Professor Eric Foner's work.

     That is why I seriously doubt that Jim agrees with RFK, Jr.'s recent public comments decrying the removal of Jim Crow era Confederate statues.

     Unlike RFK-- who risked alienating Dixiecrats by freeing Martin Luther King from prison-- RFK, Jr. appears to be pandering to white supremacists.

     I mentioned this Confederate statue issue in the context of Michael Griffith's claim that RFK, Jr. can "heal the partisan strife that is tearing this country apart."  

     Do we "heal partisan strife" by denying that slavery, racism, and Trump's J6 attack on Congress ever happened?

     My psychiatric opinion is that the first stage of "healing" requires overcoming denial-- not reinforcing it.

     

Removing statues is just dumb. It’s not a substitute for educating, rather an empty symbolic gesture, leading to abuses, such as SF board of supervisors recommending that schools should not be named after Washington, or Jefferson, or even Lincoln. It’s a missed educational opportunity. 

I don’t agree with Jim D on everything, but he has devoted decades to seeking truth and exposing lies. And all he gets here is flack from the very people that should have a bit of respect. Why is that? 
my opinion about moderators here, one I didn’t share while that thread was up and running because I was too busy trying to understand all the posts and arguments, is that it should just be uncensored. Why? Because I don’t trust anyone to be in charge of what ok to say and what isn’t ok. I’d prefer a free for all, damned the consequences, because after reading the posts on that thread it felt like we already had one. Plenty of disrespect to go around from the people who like to point fingers at others. Take the motes out of your own eyes first. 

4 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

      Since Ben Cole's multiple, redundant RFK, Jr. fluffing threads-- and commentaries promoting RFK, Jr.'s Timothy Mellon-funded stalking horse candidacy-- are, apparently, being allowed on the JFKA board, let's talk about the subject more contextually, for a change.  No censorship, please.

      Typically, when anyone tries to introduce context to these RFK, Jr. promotional threads, they are immediately removed from the JFKA board.

      And accurate contextual comments have even been deleted from these RFK, Jr. threads by the mods.

      Herewith...

      Michael Griffith has described RFK, Jr. (above) as someone who can overcome the "partisan strife that is tearing apart our country."

      What does that mean, precisely?  How does Griffith imagine reconciling rational democracy with the Trump cult's assault on democracy?

      Does it refer to RFK, Jr. assiduously avoiding any criticism of Donald Trump's historic crimes?

      His bogus claim that Trump's J6 Capitol attackers have been denied their Constitutional rights?

      RFK, Jr. lamenting the takedown of Jim Crow era Confederate statues prized by white supremacists in the Trump cult?

      James DiEugenio is a knowledgeable American historian.

      Does JD agree with RFK, Jr.'s regrets about the modern movement to replace Jim Crow era "Lost Cause" mythology with true history?

      I doubt it.  Columbia University historian Eric Foner has written very cogently about these Jim Crow era Confederate statues.

      

Too bad you are so prejudiced. Your post is full of media slant. You simply don’t know who RFK Jr is, or Nicole Shanahan, because you fall for the propagandistic hit pieces. It’s that funding you should be concerned about. He is no stalking horse. You’ve attacked Ben at every opportunity, including all the way through Mr. Gordon’s now removed thread looking at the moderators. You’ve called him MAGA, and you honestly believe you’re doing us all a big favor by revealing his true motives. It’s your motives I wonder about, and why no one is coming after you for your ‘dancing Israelis’ theory of 9/11. Who put you on a pedestal? 

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Martin Nee said it quite well,  to my recollection as a long time member the forum is supposed to be about exploration and education - not advocacy and not evangelism. I sincerely hope to see it return to that mode of operation and moderation.

I agreed with Mr. Née as well. Thanks Larry.

1 hour ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

Paul, LBJ appointed Helms DCI in 1966.  Shortly after that appointment , Helms had Des Fitzgerald fire Barnes, who had tried to get Helms kicked out of the CIA by going to Dulles. It did not work and Barnes was out as soon as LBJ appointed Helms DCI in 1966- see page 502 in "Coup in Dallas" ( it is in the essay by Alan Kent at the end of the aforementioned book).

I read that essay but forgot that.