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Posts posted by Paul Brancato
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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I was not previously aware that Richard Helms fired Barnes in 1966. Is there a backstory?
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2 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:
Larry, not to digress here, but I have lived in New Haven CT off and on for almost 50 years, and was amazed to find out that when Kingman Brewster was the president of Yale his chief assistant was - yes, Tracy Barnes. Barnes was in the middle of the Bobby Seale trial situation, and was, interestingly enough, one of the local people most trusted in negotiations with the Black Panthers. I have always thought someone should examine his role in these events more closely, given what were undoubtedly his continued government connections and the highly politicized atmosphere into which he was thrown. I would be very surprised if he was not reporting back to the CIA/FBI et al.
Were you aware that Barnes and Bissell were involved with American First at Yale in 1940?
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1 hour ago, Johnny Cairns said:
Hi Paul
Yes, Robert Kennedy was shot in the kitchen pantry of the ambassador hotel. He was on his way to the colonial room, but sadly never made it.
So Sirhan was in the pantry when he fired?
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19 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Its because Bobby was going through the pantry.
On his way to the media.
Cameras waiting for him to appear from the pantry? I understand while in the pantry but hadn’t he just entered the destination room? He wasn’t shot in the pantry.
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1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:
If you listen to the tapes from the Ambassador that night, really something.
The common refrain is don't harm Sirhan, we don't want another Dallas.
Jungian collective.
It’s never made sense to me that we have no video of the shooting
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I recall that Noguchi, aware of the importance of this autopsy, invited several other top pathologists to monitor his autopsy. He also got fired shortly thereafter and had to go to court to get his job back.
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5 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:
I remember the JFK Assassination. No school that afternoon, nothing but news on the tv all weekend, the funeral. But I don't remember the RFK Assassination. I don't know why. I've come to learn over the years his death was truly the end of the hope that blossomed with JFK. The end of an era. I now have two other more positive reasons to remember the date of his actual death. June 5, 1991 I delivered my youngest daughter by accident, she came quick. Me and 911, scary. Then on June 5, 2015 my youngest granddaughter was born.
I've read this song was about Buddy Holley's death. I think it maybe appropriate to remember RFK with it as well. You might say the music of Camelot that day.
My one year old granddaughter was likewise born on June 5th.
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Thanks Ben - I had not seen that evidence you posted before.
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We all felt that way. I knew it my bones that he would win the Democratic primaries, that I as a new voter would be able to vote for someone great in Nov 1968. But that year surpassed anything we could imagine, and I cannot carry on any meaningful discussions now with anyone who hasn’t looked beyond the headlines, those who fail to understand what my generation witnessed and what it meant. That includes my own children, so I know how pervasive this rewrite of history has been.
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That an armed guard behind RFK fired at least two shots at point blank range.
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That is what many of us think, despite the military buildup.
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I still think that the arms bust blew Ellsworth’s undercover operation, and that it was done deliberately. Didn’t Ellsworth later opine that he thought the assassination was a conspiracy?
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Angleton may also have been running the Saudi desk.
Do you have links to Nasser kicking Nazis out of Egypt?
I’m not sure we are disagreeing. I agree that it’s Gladio 2.0 whenever it starts and by whatever name you call it. -
On 5/30/2024 at 1:30 PM, Matthew Koch said:
It's at the 58:00 minute mark in the American Exception link above
I didn’t hear that, but the concept of neocon syndicates - drugs, weapons, oil - using jihadist networks like Al Qaida going back to 1991 - is interesting.
Ask Not? Geez... I'm Almost Afraid to Ask
in JFK Book Discussions
Posted
So what’s your theory? Why now?