W. Niederhut

Michael Griffith is on a roll with his hyperbolic name-calling lately, and it looks like his creative slurs are not only being slung at CIA whistleblower, Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. This week, Michael has derided James DiEugenio as "far left," and he just oxymoronically denounced me as a "close-minded ultra-liberal."

Trump Fawns Over Dictators April 12, 2023 at 10:12 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 29 Comments Here’s how Donald Trump described meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Fox News last night: Here’s his take on North Korea’s Kim Jung Un: Here’s what he says about Russian president Vladimir Putin:

Michael Griffith thinks I'm a close minded "ultra liberal." And all this time I thought I was an intellectually curious M.D. and a rational centrist on the Political Compass rating scale. I never realized how controversial the scientific method is to many conservatives (and some liberals, apparently) until the COVID pandemic occurred. Republican opposition to climate change science should have been a clue. Some experts fear rise in medical misinformation following RFK Jr.'s presidential announcement - ABC News (go.com) April 12, 2023

So Bannon and Stone think RFK, Jr. could save Trump's disastrous political career by running as Trump's VP? Weird. Would RFK, Jr. ever go along with that bizarre scheme? Would the Trump cult?

Michael, I apologize for misspelling your name. I went back and corrected the typos. I must have been thinking of the talk show host, Merv Griffin, back in the day.

Paul, You seem to be buying into some sort of false equivalence about the history and agendas of 21st century Republicans and Democrats. Do you understand the extent of the 21st century GOP/Koch/Federalist Society chicanery involved in stacking the courts with pro-corporate GOP plutocrats? For example, are you familiar with the stats about Mitch McConnell's historic obstruction of President Barack Obama's judicial nominees? The problem went far beyond McConnell's historic refusal for 300 days (following the death of Scalia) to conduct Senate hearings to confirm Obama's SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland-- on the grounds that 2016 was an election year. Then, one week before the 2020 election, McConnell confirmed Trump's SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett-- just 30 days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg! Can you smell the Koch/Republican sleaze here? It's the Democracy in Chains GOP game plan, described in detail by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean. As for Biden, he has done an excellent job with judicial nominees-- as with most executive decisions-- although, to date, he has had only one opportunity to appoint a SCOTUS justice.

Great idea, Matt. And I'll follow up with a series of new JFK Assassination Board threads with titles like, "Were Trump, Barr, and Pompeo Accessories After the Fact in JFK's Murder?" and, "Why Were Trump's Fox News Propagandists Silent About Trump's Suppression of the JFK Records?"

This reminds me of Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission statement that none of the major short-selling of United Airlines and American Airlines stock just prior to 9/11 was linked to the suspects (i.e., Al Qaeda.)

Chris, You, obviously, misinterpreted my comment, again. It's a bad habit of yours. I was talking about my training and many years of experience reading and analyzing medical papers. Do you and Cotter even know what p values are in medical research?

Newsflash, Ben. If 80,000 more votes had been counted for Hillary Clinton in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett would not be sitting on the SCOTUS today, and Roe v. Wade would still be the law of the land. Worth thinking about. And if 5 Republicans on the Rehnquist court had not voted in Bush v. Gore to urgently shut down the Florida re-count in December of 2020, the multi-trillion dollar U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would probably never have happened-- and the 5-4 Citizens United ruling would never have happened. Ergo, flawed judicial appointments by Republican Presidents have been monumentally important in the 21st century.

I'm, frankly, surprised to read this strange story about Roger Stone. I thought that Steve Bannon and Stone were conspiring to promote RFK, Jr. in an effort to undermine the Democrats' prospects for holding onto the White House in 2024. As for Bill Barr and Matt Taibbi becoming disillusioned with their sociopathic former employers, the word, "schadenfreude," comes to mind. And hasn't everyone who ever got involved with Donald Trump regretted it?

I don't know about other people on this forum, but I've just about had it with these puerile, inaccurate, libelous commentaries by Chris Barnard and John Cotter. Lately, these two have taken to posting bogus, ad hominem attacks on my professional medical judgment, while repeatedly misquoting and misrepresenting what I have actually posted about vaccines. Basta, per Dio... And, meanwhile, Barnard and Cotter have actually complained to the administrators here about my recently pointing out (in response to their faux criticisms of President Biden) that they seem to be "embarrassingly ignorant" about American politics. Other forum members have posted similar, accurate observations about Barnard and Cotter. As for the subject of COVID vaccines, I have, on a few occasions, posted some CDC morbidity and mortality COVID data on this forum -- on our original Journal of the Plague Year thread and elsewhere-- which Barnard and Cotter have persistently ignored, even in response to some direct questions on the subject. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead a man to data, but you can't make him think. As for Cotter's Goldacre reference on "bad pharma," I will refer Barnard and Cotter to some New York Times articles in which I have been referenced as a critic of the pharmaceutical industry. Barnard and Cotter actually believe that they are "educating" me on the subject of Big Pharma and medical papers that I have been studying and analyzing for the past 40 years. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/12/washington/12psych.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/health/ketamine-depression-veterans.html

Oh, come on, mods... Geez... 🙄 How many more redundant threads is Ben Cole allowed to start here on the same subject of Biden pulling a Donald Trump by declining to release the JFK Records? Meanwhile, our original forum thread (from 2020) on the subject of Trump's historic 2017 decision to block the release of the JFK Records, when they were finally due for release, has been banished to another board.

That was quite the pivot, Ben, in the context of our discussion here (above) about RFK, Jr. and the relationship between the state and corporate capitalism. You completely dodged my multiple choice question about which political party has stacked the U.S. courts with pro-corporate judges-- including the five SCOTUS judges who wiped out a century of campaign finance reforms in the U.S. with their Citizens United ruling. Was it the Donks or the 'Phants that opened the floodgates for unlimited dark money advertising in U.S. elections-- facilitating further corporate plutocratic control of our state and Federal governments? Then, instead of answering the question, you reminded us, for possibly the 30th time in recent weeks, that Biden has pulled a Donald Trump by declining to release the JFK records.

Paul, If you think that a Republican POTUS is going to promote a progressive regulatory agenda for corporate capitalists you haven' been paying close enough attention to modern American history. Consider the process used by the Republicans to stack the U.S. courts with pro-corporate, anti-labor judges in modern history-- Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, et.al. And the GOP SCOTUS judges were the guys who voted 5-4 in critically important rulings like Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and Shelby v. Holder. Citizens United abolished a century of campaign finance reforms in the U.S. Shelby v. Holder abolished enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Republicans like George W. Bush and Trump are also the Presidents who repeatedly sabotaged environmental protections and other regulations on corporate polluters and fraudsters, while cutting taxes for billionaires and corporations (in Trump's case.) So, RFK, Jr. fans who are appropriately concerned about the vital role of government regulation of corporate capitalism in the public interest need to understand the facts about the GOP/Koch agenda to put "democracy in chains." They have done it through the courts, and through Congress-- in the teeth of Democratic opposition. They'll do it again, if they get the opportunity. Ben Cole is simply wrong about this issue regarding historic policy differences between Donks and 'Phants. Nor is RFK, Jr. saying anything that hasn't been said for years by experienced, progressive Democratic legislators like Elizabeth Waren and Bernie Sanders.

Reality check, Ben. I. Which political party stacked the courts with the pro-corporate judges who voted 5-4 in the Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder rulings? A. The "billionaire donor" Donks B. The 'Phants C. Both D. Not sure. Please post this question on another board.

Sure, Kellyanne, don't focus on revising these deeply flawed GOP policies. Instead, focus on public relations strategies to counteract the "leftist turnout machine." In other words, it's not a policy problem. It's merely a Republican sales and marketing problem. 🤥

Fox News, Ben Cole, and the Trumplicon media have repeatedly insisted that Brian Sicknick's death was unrelated to his physical and chemical assault by Trump's mob on January 6th. This trope is based on the suspiciously belated report of the coroner in the case-- sans public documentation-- that Sicknick died of a basilar artery thrombosis. As I have pointed out to Ben Cole more than once, I have some serious doubts about the coroner's conclusion in the Sicknick case. Where is the data? What sort of toxicology screening was done? In a private Email to me, Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist interviewed for the film JFK Revisted/Destiny Betrayed, told me that he also had questions about the coroner's report on Sicknick. The probability that Sicknick's untimely death shortly after the January 6th assault was unrelated to the attack on the Capitol seems extremely low to me. Yet, Tucker Carlson has continued to use the suspicious coroner's report in Sicknick's case to downplay the significance of Trump's J6 coup attempt.

Addendum: Also, how do you and Chris Barnard (and RFK, Jr.) explain the data indicating that COVID infections cause a higher risk of myocarditis in young people than vaccines?

John, Please stop posting erroneous comments about my posts, and repeating things that I have explained to you, as if you had formulated the thought yourself -- as in the case of my explanation to you that criticism of someone's arguments is not the same thing as an ad hominem argument. You seem to have a peculiar knack for that sort of thing. . You also neglected to mention that I only referenced my academic credentials in response to your repeated, inaccurate slurs on that subject. I was correcting your disinformation. As for the issue of corporate advertising and funding of medical research, it has long been a subject of interest to me. I have even been quoted in the New York Times on more than one occasion as a critic of advertising by Big Pharma. But medical journals are not monolithic. Some are highly reputable -- e.g., NEJM-- and some are heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies. I once had a conversation with the late Dr. Arnold Relman, editor of the NEJM, in which he told me that physicians should never own stock in pharmaceutical companies. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for you to post a critique of the U.S. CDC COVID morbidity and mortality data that I have shared with you in recent weeks. How do you explain the 14-fold increased risk of COVID deaths in unvaccinated U.S. adults compared to adults who had received vaccinations and boosters? How do you explain the significantly increased COVID death rates in U.S. counties that voted for Donald Trump in 2020, compared to counties that voted for Joe Biden?

Ron, I agree with RFK, Jr., in the sense that only the state has the potential authority to regulate corporate capitalism in the public interest. And, let's face it, the corporate capitalists largely control our Federal and state governments-- a problem that has been compounded by the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling. The long-term Koch/GOP strategy to put "democracy in chains" in the U.S. has succeeded in stacking the courts with pro-corporate, anti-labor Republicans like Clarence Thomas, Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, et.al. Ergo, it's critically important for liberals to remain united enough to hold on to the White House in 2024.

John, Your sarcasm is simply ridiculous. Do you mistakenly imagine that I didn't study immunology and virology in college and medical school, or that I didn't study philosophical logic in college? (My years of psychiatric training occurred after college and medical school.) As for your article, what I have learned about "alternative" medical theories during the past 40+ years is that they sometimes have merit, and, when they do, they are eventually supported by peer-reviewed scientific analyses in the quality journals. And, as a college professor once told me, "Life is too short to waste on mediocre literature. Read the good stuff." So, to reiterate, I'll continue to base my medical opinions on the high quality, peer-reviewed scientific literature.

I never said it was ad hominem, John. You misquoted me again. I asked if it should be reported to the administrators as "abusive"-- in the same way that you (or someone else on the forum) accused me of being "abusive" for referring to your inaccurate post about President Biden as evidence of your "embarrassing ignorance about American politics." My comment was accurate. As for your comment about my "lack of credibility" on matters relating to immunology and virology-- it's ridiculous. I'm a graduate of the top-ranked medical school in the U.S. One of my old medical school classmates, Peg Hamburg, was Obama's FDA Director.

And why is this Mamet screenplay getting major M$M coverage as "the true story, at last," after JFK Revisited (the actual true story, at last) was either ignored or misrepresented by the M$M?

Ben, You're begging the question, repeatedly and annoyingly. To wit, is the M$M criticizing RFK, Jr. mainly for promoting vaccine disinformation, or is this actually a Deep State plot to suppress the JFK records, in the unlikely event that RFK, Jr. were elected POTUS? The bigger picture, IMO, is that the Republican dirty tricksters promoting RFK. Jr.'s candidacy-- Steve Bannon and Roger Stone-- are, apparently, hoping that RFK, Jr.'s anti-vax fan club will succeed in undermining the 2024 Democratic Party nominee. Bannon, Stone, and Robert Mercer want another Koch/Trump Republican in the White House-- someone who will keep taxes low for billionaires, hamstring the EPA, and Starve-the-Beast-ly working class.