W. Niederhut

The Koch War On American Democracy Documented | Rightwing Group Pours Millions in ‘Dark Money’ Into US… January 17, 2023

Wrong again, Ben. I was referring to the comprehensive "Day of Rage' NYT video reconstruction of the January 6th attack on Congress that some of us posted and reviewed here in the summer of 2021. Did you ever watch it? This is supposed to be an "Education" forum-- where people share and discuss scholarly evidence about history, not a forum for repeatedly posting false historical narratives that disregard the evidence.

I don't know where Ben and Mathew Koch are getting their delusional notions about what happened on January 6th, but it's obvious that they never studied the film or listened to the sworn Congressional J6 witness testimony. As for Trump's refusal to call out that National Guard on J6, let's also recall that Trump did just the opposite during the George Floyd protests in D.C., while sheltering in a White House bunker (before having the police clear Lafayette Square with tear gas for his inverted Bible photo op. ) Trump flooded the Washington mall with National Guard troops during the peaceful BLM protests.

Anyone who has studied the film of the January 6th Trump mob attack on the Capitol knows that the Capitol Police were outnumbered, overwhelmed, and seriously injured in the violent attack. The real question is how this could have happened. How did the Trump administration's FBI, DHS, Pentagon, and Secret Service intelligence about the impending attack on Congress fail to lead to adequate security for the U.S. Congress? From the Congressional J6 investigation we know that Donald Trump and the Secret Service even knew that Trump's J6 mob was dangerously armed-- yet failed to alert the Capitol Police until after 4 PM on January 6th! And Trump failed to call in the National Guard for three hours-- while watching the attack on television!

Jim, Outstanding interview. A++. It's a great overview and back story on the making of the film. Your comments about seeing the photo of JFK learning about Lumumba's death--and exploring JFK's radical vision for America's role in the world-- were quite poignant. On a side note, I noticed that Oliver Stone remains skeptical about LBJ's possible involvement in the JFK murder plot. I got the impression that Oliver, perhaps understandably, really doesn't want to believe that LBJ may have been in on the plot.

Don't get too excited, Mathew. It's probably the least concerning revelation about George Santos to date, IMO. But it could be a bit awkward for the anti-LGBT ideologues in Kevin McCarthy's GOP Sedition Caucus.

Brazilian claims George Santos was a drag queen... 🤥

Excellent post, Joe. For people interested in this subject, I would highly recommend a book that I read a year or two ago called, Atomic Accidents, by a nuclear engineer named James Maheffey. It's a fascinating read-- a well written history of humanity's experiences with radioactive materials during the past century; early 20th century radium health spas and elixirs, atomic bomb tests in Russia and the American West, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. There was a lot of nuclear fall-out on the planet during the Cold War, and most of it was kept secret. John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, and the entire cast and crew for the 1956 movie, The Conqueror, were contaminated in St. George, Utah by radioactive dust from a Nevada atomic bomb test. Two of the atomic accidents discussed in the book happened here in Denver in my lifetime-- two fires at the local Rocky Flats plutonium plant in 1957 and 1969 , where the triggers for America's nuclear bombs were manufactured for decades (for shipment to Amarillo, Texas.) Atomic Accidents , Maheffey, James - Amazon.com

Well, I'm shocked, shocked to hear that our itinerant Warren Commission Report salesman, Lance Payette, agrees with Ben Cole's bogus narrative likening January 6th to a Monty Python scrum. Ben and Lance, apparently haven't studied the gruesome footage of the violent J6 attack on the Capitol. Or, if they have, they're dissembling about what happened. Great BSers think alike... 🤥 (Or was Lance thinking of the Monty Python Holy Grail scene where the black knight gets brutally assaulted?) Meanwhile, where is Ben's hero Matt Taibbi when we could really use some honest investigative reporting about the suppressed J6 Twitter files? January 6 Committee Left Out Social Media Findings (mediaite.com)

Ron, My wife and I were scheduled to fly to Love Field in Dallas tomorrow (on Southwest.) Had to re-schedule for Saturday due to this snow storm tonight. I have two snow shovels on standby, but shoveling snow is getting old lately. I'd rather be in the tropics.

I don't watch television news, Mathew. But, surely, you aren't naive enough to believe that Trump wasn't involved in his Trump Organization tax fraud schemes? And remember when the Trump Foundation was shut down for fraud after the 2016 election? Trump has always been a fraudster.

Huh, Mathew? Did Fox News black out coverage of this big story? Trump Org. fined $1.6 million after conviction for 17 felonies, including tax fraud | CNN Politics January 13, 2023

And I forgot to mention that, unlike Trump, Al Capone never violated a Presidential oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

This is hitting below the belt, Mark. Comparing Trump to Al Capone is unfair to Al Capone. It's true that both men cheated on their taxes, but Capone was merely a violence-inciting Chicago racketeer. In contrast, Trump was a violence-inciting Presidential racketeer.

Try to improve your reading comprehension, Michael. I was discussing Dr. George Estabrooks contemporaneous commentary (in his 1943 Hypnosis textbook) about Adolf Hitler's use of stage hypnosis techniques, some of which have also been used by Trump at his rallies. Are you unaware that Donald Trump used to keep a copy of Hitler's speeches on his nightstand, according to his ex-wife Ivana Trump? Donald and Ivana Trump’s Divorce: The Full Story | Vanity Fair So, my comment wasn't about Trump's ideology, per se, but demagogic technique. However, if you want to look beyond oratorical technique, there are numerous parallels between Trump's cult and the N-a-z-i Party in the 1930s. Both movements were/are rooted in race-based nationalism, scapegoating of minority groups, and fear mongering about trumped-up threats at the border. Hitler disparaged Slavs and Jews as "untermenschen." Trump disparaged Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers, and non-Caucasian "shithole countries." Making Germany Great Again was a prominent N-a-z-i propaganda theme in the 1930s. Sound familiar? Hitler attacked the "lying" press--i.e., "Lugenpresse"-- and shut down all opposition media after establishing totalitarian control of Germany in 1932. Trump has consistently attacked the press as "fake news," while telling over 30,000 well-documented lies during his Presidency.

The photos of the flooding in California look horrific. More catastrophic climate change. Stay safe. Incidentally, the first "bomb cyclone" in recorded history hit Denver on March 13, 2019. It uprooted eight mature aspen trees in my backyard.

I'm looking at this photo and thinking, "Fair enough ladies, where the hell is the Jack Daniels?" 🤥

Hey, leave champagne out of this, Mathew. Is nothing sacred anymore? 🤥

Chris, I've been to the Isle of Skye, but not Lewis. Did you know that Donald Trump's mother, Mary McLeod, was from the Isle of Lewis, northwest of Skye?

Not true. I posted Andy Stewart's Scottish song about Trump's sexual assault history, didn't I? Donald, Where's Your Trousers? 🤥

Newsflash, Mathew. Dry your tears. My Falun Gong comment was topically related to Kirk's comment about The Epoch Times.

Perhaps our transcontinental friend, Chris Barnard, is a member of the Falun Gong. 🤥

Chris, There's a difference between dissent, per se, and toxic disinformation which damages the public health and welfare. Can you give us any examples of JFK "welcoming" hate speech or deleterious medical disinformation? As for censorship, it has already been pervasive in U.S. society for decades. Just look at the 59-year censorship of the truth about the CIA/Joint Chiefs' conspiracy to murder President Kennedy!

Nice try, Mathew, but no cigar. I mentioned the targeting of Mexicans, et.al., only in the context of contemporary stochastic terrorism in Trump's MAGA-verse-- as in the case of the Trump/Fox inspired El Paso Walmart Massacre of Mexican Americans. I don't believe the targeting of any ethnic/cultural/religious/political group by demagogic stochastic terrorists is acceptable.

Yes, but in those totalitarian police states resistance was often futile. Solzhenitsyn described some rare instances of violent revolts in the Gulag Archipelago, but they were brutally repressed. So, in general, the issue of ethically appropriate "censorship" of incitement of violence hinges on the nature of the censors and the targets of violence. If an American demagogue is inciting violence against people who are black, Hispanic, Muslim, gay, liberal, etc., I believe that such stochastic terrorism should be censored. In other words, I believe Elon Musk is a horse's ass.