W. Niederhut

Let's not forget about the mysterious death of Senator Paul Wellstone on October 25, 2002-- after Dick Cheney had privately threatened Wellstone for not supporting the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld push to invade Iraq. Wellstone was expected to win re-election to the Senate in November of 2002. Wellstone's friend Al Franken believes that Wellstone's October plane crash was no accident.

Iranian-made kamikaze drones are also killing children in Ukraine this month.

I recall reading in James Douglass's book, JFK and the Unspeakable, about Wayne January's claim that he saw a visitor who looked like Oswald at Redbird Airport a day or two before November 22, 1963. He was with some other guys who were making inquiries about the leased CIA airplane that flew from Redbird to Houston on the afternoon of 11/22/63. It left me with the impression that Oswald thought he was going to be flown out of Redbird with the Cuban/CIA assassination team on 11/22/63. He didn't realize that he was going to be ditched in Dallas and murdered as the patsy. Isn't Larry Hancock the expert on this subject?

Mark, My latest attempt to engage Mathew Koch in an honest discussion here is also my final attempt. Mathew, obviously, won't even respond to basic questions from forum members. He's a spammer.

Well, it looks like Mathew Koch has completely ducked my questions, while continue to swamp the board with his YouTube and Fox MAGA spam. Lucky us. Questions for Mathew Koch 1) Does Mathew endorse Trump's "Stop the Steal" Big Lie and the 2022 GOP candidates, like Kari Lake, who have publicly endorsed Trump's Big Lie? 2) Does Mathew deny that Trump attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. election by organizing slates of False Electors and inciting a violent attack on the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2021? 3) Does Mathew support the Kevin McCarthy/GOP plan to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare if Republicans regain control of the House in 2023? C'mon, Mathew. Take a break from posting your daily MAGA spam and answer the questions.

The story is also being covered by The Guardian today. Biden officials sued over delayed release of JFK assassination records | John F Kennedy | The Guardian

Benjamin Cole to Be Executed in Oklahoma Oklahoma Inmate Facing Execution After Supreme Court Rejects Appeal (commondreams.org) October 20, 2022

Mathew, Unlike you, I'm not Fox/YouTube "scholar." In fact, I was studying history (science, economics, etc.) at an Ivy League college while you were probably still wearing diapers. So, it's quite presumptuous of you --and, frankly, ridiculous-- to imagine that you know what I "watch," (almost nothing) or where I get my detailed, accurate information about American history and current events. As for Kari Lake, do you agree with her publicly stated opinion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump? That's a very important, basic question about her suitability for public office. Is she honest, or does she endorse Trump's Big Lie? Also, do you agree with the Kevin McCarthy/GOP plan to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, in the event that Republicans regain control of the House in 2023? Please answer these two questions.

"Ich bin ein Berliner!" -- President John F. Kennedy/West Berlin/June 26, 1963 "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." -- President Ronald Reagan/West Berlin/June 12, 1987 "Belgium is a beautiful city." -- President Donald Trump/Atlanta, Georgia/June 16, 2016

Pete, I remember when Dylan was criticized by some critics for lifting a lot of lines from black folk blues classics on the Love and Theft album-- "Well, I'm getting up in the morning, I believe I'll dust my broom/ I'm keeping away from the women, I'm giving 'em lots of room." -- but I have always loved that album. It's a kind of anthology of black blues folklore, one of my favorites. In fact, borrowing/stealing black folklore was a deliberate theme of that album, back in the years before Dylan was recognized as a literary genius by the Nobel establishment.

Ben and Mathew will love this one, along with the recent Willie Horton style GOP attack ads during the baseball playoffs. Talk about your GOP identity politics... 🤥 Attack Ads Are Darkening the Skin of Black Candidates (politicalwire.com)

Well, I should probably tone down the criticism, Ben, but these are things that really matter. It galls me to see the Republicans, once again, conning the public into voting against their own interests. How many middle and working class Republican voters realize that the top GOP priorities for the next Congress are to protect the Trump/GOP tax cuts for billionaires and force cuts in Medicare and Social Security by refusing, as in 2011, to raise the debt ceiling? Do you understand the Koch/GOP "Starve the Beast" strategy?

And, incredibly, our most vocal local MAGAt, Ben Cole, still hasn't figured out that the Trump/Koch GOP is the opposite of a populist party. It's false conscioussness. For example, Ben misinterprets the Trump GOP's fascist fear mongering about dark-skinned immigrants as advocacy for American workers! Some guys are slow learners. Does Ben really think that the current covert GOP plan to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare is in the interest of the downtrodden American working class? Has Ben studied the historic relationship between U.S. poverty, Social Security, and the Kennedy's Medicare legislation? The truth is that the Trump/Koch GOP is the party of Robber Barons. Their top priority now is to protect the 2017 Trump/GOP tax cuts for billionaires, and to "starve the beast."

Indeed. The Republican (and Tory) "Both Siderists" on the national debt issue simply don't know their history. Bill Clinton and the Democrats dramatically reduced the growth rate of the Reaganomic national debt from 1993-2001 by raising the top income tax rate in 1993. (See chart below) Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney inherited a budgetary surplus and U.S. national debt of only $5 trillion from Bill Clinton in January of 2001-- and had very realistic prospects of paying off the U.S. national debt, as Alan Greenspan, himself, noted in his memoir, A Time of Turbulence. Instead, Bush and Cheney recklessly cut the top income tax rate in 2001 and 2003, and DOUBLED the national debt in eight years-- arguing that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." And the $10 trillion Bush/Cheney national debt in January of 2009 was further magnified after 2009 by the widespread bank failures/bailouts, Great Recession, and the Bush/Cheney Afghanistan and Iraq War debts. The situation stabilized during Obama's tenure. Then Trump and the Koch Republicons, once again, cut the top income tax rate, and corporate taxes in 2017. The U.S. national debt increased by $8 trillion during Trump's disastrous four-year presidency.

Not surprisingly, Ben's attempt at humor in posting a derogatory Biden meme fell flat-- but his comment about the Democratic Party being based "only on ID politics" was unwittingly amusing. Certainly, Trump and his cult have strongly identified themselves as Blood and Soil, white, gun-toting Evangelical Protestants, but that doesn't mean that Democrats have similarly based their own political affiliation on ethnicity and religion. In fact, the opposite is the case. Democrats are ethnically and religiously diverse. (Where's Chris Barnard when we need a legitimate diagnosis of projection?) How many times have people here on the Education Forum tried to educate Ben about the substantive policy differences between the Koch- bought GOP and progressive Democrats-- including critically important issues like climate change, healthcare, gun control, Citizens United, abortion, tax policy, prosecuting Trump's J6 coup attempt, etc.? It's all for naught. Ben's mind is closed to revising his numerous flawed paradigms, even while he repeatedly claims to "keep an open mind." My guess is that Ben closed his mind and avoided listening to the damning evidence about Trump's J6 coup attempt-- and Secret Service complicity-- in last week's final Congressional hearing. At the same time, he repeatedly insists that Trump's J6 MAGA mob wasn't armed-- the exact opposite conclusion reached by the Secret Service before the J6 attack on the Capitol! Under the circumstances, Ben is, obviously, thrilled to have a new forum member from the MAGA-verse, Mathew Koch, share and amplify his MAGA-verse paradigms here. It's a folie a deux.

The latest from Russ Baker... Putin Derangement Syndrome: When a Dictator Can Do No Wrong - WhoWhatWhy

This is not about JFK or Murder Most Foul, per se, but it's an interesting read for those of us who are Dylan fans, written by an English professor from the University of Maryland. How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of 'imitatio' to craft some of the most original songs of his time (theconversation.com) October 17, 2022

I don't watch much television, other than occasional football games, (which are almost unwatchable in Colorado this year) but it sounds like the pre-election, dark-money-funded GOP television ads are starting to flood the airwaves this month. For this we can thank the disastrous 5-4 Koch/Federalist Society SCOTUS's Citizen's United ruling, which wiped out a century of campaign finance reforms in the U.S. MAGA!!! As for GOP ads this month, I'm guessing that they will focus on; 1) fear-mongering about brown people, and 2) blaming Democrats for inflation caused by highly-profitable corporate price gouging. I will also make a wild guess that the GOP ads will not be advertising the top two GOP priorities if Repubs regain control of Congress-- 1) protecting the Trump/GOP tax cuts for billionaires, and 2) cutting funding for Social Security and Medicare. politicalwire.com/2022/10/17/republicans-plan-push-to-extend-trump-tax-cuts/ www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/14/corporate-media-mostly-ignoring-gop-ploy-cut-social-security-and-medicare

Speaking of wealthy people, has anyone heard of this right wing power couple funding the vile Willie Horton style GOP ads during the current baseball playoffs? (No Paywall at link) Who’s behind those vile, right-wing political TV ads during the baseball playoffs (archive.ph)

Huh, Ben? What glass houses do you imagine progressive Democrats around here live in? Do tell. As for Douglas Caddy's latest post about insurance companies and Hurricane Ian, let's not forget that Florida Republicans like Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, and Ron DeSantis have been funded by the Kochs for years to deny climate change. When Koch-ster Rick Scott was Governor of Florida he even prohibited Florida state employees from using the term "climate change." The GOP is, unquestionably, the Big Oil-funded party of climate change denial.

John, There are many things about U.S. State Department, military, and CIA policies in the post-WWII era that I disapprove of, including NATO expansion. But I have also disagreed with many of Putin's anti-Democratic policies during the past 20 years. As for the apocalyptic Third Rome theology of the ROC, it has been integral to the thinking of Slavophiles from Dostoevsky to Alexander Dugin. Regarding the Biden critics around here, don't forget that Joe Biden is the only Irish Catholic President we've ever elected in the U.S., besides John F. Kennedy. Wealthy conservatives hate Biden, and denigrate him 24/7, but I think his heart is in the right place. P.S. You can PM people here by clicking on their name, then clicking on Message.

I haven't seen Hearts and Minds for almost 50 years now, but, along with the napalming, what sticks in my cabeza was that scene where some American jackass, possibly Westmoreland, said that, "Asian people don't value human lives" the way Americans do. Interesting commentary by Joseph McBride about the Hollywood Vietnam War mongers. I vaguely recall John Wayne muttering some pro-Nixon trope on the stage at one of the Academy Award shows back in those days.

Aliens From the MAGA-verse Invade Education Forum Once Scholarly Forum Now Flooded with Firehose of Right Wing Falsehoods The Firehose of Falsehood Effect (propwatch.org) October 15, 2022

John, Let's stop the silly bickering. In reality, you and I probably agree on most things. We're both pro-working class fans of John F. Kennedy, right? I'm even a musician who has recorded a lot of Celtic folk music over the years. Here's one of my Irish recordings. (Can't vouch for my Gaelic.) Mo Choill (My Love) by Guillermo Ambrose | SoundClick Isn't the gist of your argument that Princeton Professor Stephen Kotkin was merely "projecting" American exceptionalism onto Putin and the Russian Federation? The issue is far more complex. Russians have their own apocalyptic grandiosity. Are you familiar with the apocalyptic early 16th century Russian Orthodox concept of Moscow as the "Third Rome...and there shall not be a Fourth?" Here's an interesting recent commentary on the subject of Putin's imperialism. The Kremlin’s suicidal imperialism – Nina L Khrushcheva (socialeurope.eu)

Re-read my post, slowly, John. Your entire, imaginary "refutation" of Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin's critique of Mearsheimer hinged on one word, "greatest" (vs. "great") as a description of Russia's imperialist aspirations. I think it can be fairly said that I have experienced Russian culture, for many years, "from the inside." In the process, I have realized that very few Westerners understand Russian culture-- even those who have read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I never understood Dostoevsky until I had personally experienced the mystical theology and praxis of Russian Orthodoxy. It is other-- almost like stepping 1,000 years backward in time and place, to the Byzantine Empire. Most anthropologists will know what I'm talking about. Conversely, I think it can be fairly said that your knowledge of Russian history and culture is limited. Are you familiar with the history of the Streltsy, Okhrana, NKVD, KGB, FSB, etc.? With the Slavophile philosophers and literatii? Alexander Dugin has been described as the intellectual Godfather of Putin's neo-Soviet imperialism. Are you familiar with Dugin's work?