W. Niederhut

Tony, I haven't really studied the Harvey & Lee theory, other than reading John Armstrong's two Probe Magazine essays on the subject in DiEugenio's Assassinations anthology today. Who "debunked" Armstrong's rather detailed findings?

Gerry, Here's a photo of Marguerite Claverie Oswald with her husband, Edwin Ekdahl, in 1945. Does she look anything like the short, heavy-set "Marguerite Oswald" who attended Oswald's funeral? (Incidentally, the minister who conducted Oswald's funeral, Louis Saunders, was my father-in-law's best friend. He presided at my wedding.) Below: Edwin Ekdahl and Marguerite Claverie Oswald in 1945 Marina and the other Marguerite Oswald (1963)

Trump is playing the victim and actively inciting violence with his lie-filled rant in PA today-- calling for his cult to "smash" the Democrats. Shades of January 6th. Here's a live-tweet analysis of Trump's rant by Seth Abramson. Thread by @SethAbramson on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

I've been reading some of the old, labyrinthine literature about Oswald recently, (Oswald and the CIA, Libra, and John Armstrong's Harvey & Lee essays in DiEugenio's Assassinations anthology) and I have a question about Harvey, Lee, and the "two Marguerites." (I even reviewed several old Education Forum threads about Harvey & Lee, but didn't find an answer to my question here.) If Armstrong's evidence about Harvey, Lee, and the two Marguerites is accurate, whatever became of Lee Oswald and the real Marguerite Claverie Oswald after 11/22/63? Any reports or theories? Armstrong did a lot of work to reconstruct Marguerite Claverie Oswald's detailed history up until about (?) 1961 or '62 in New Orleans, but then the trail seemed to grow cold. I can imagine that the CIA would have, naturally, wanted both of them to disappear, as in witness protection programs or fatal accidents? Another oddity about the case is the apparent differing opinions of Lee's step-brother, John Pic, and his brother, Robert Oswald, about Lee's identity. https://harveyandlee.net/Moms/Moms.html

Ben, Thanks for sharing your latest weird dispatch from the Siamese MAGA-verse. It's Orwellian, indeed, but not in the way that you imagine -- as if Biden condemning Trumplican fascism is "spooky," and Trumplican fascism isn't? War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Anti-fascism is fascism? It reminds me of the Obama years, when Fox News watchers compared Obama to Hitler for issuing his DACA executive order, after the Tea Party House refused to pass the Senate immigration bill. Talk about yer liberal Demonrat dictator! 🤥 At least you didn't refer to Biden as "Pedo-Hitler" tonight -- a trope I read on a less scholarly forum today.

Speaking of Russ Baker, he published another article in his "Only Lone Nuts Need Apply" series this week. I'm sure that this will ring quite true for people in the JFKA research community. Notes From the Memory Hole: When the Establishment Buries You - WhoWhatWhy

Ben, I hope you had a chance to study the references I posted for you the last time you raised these same questions about WTC leasing and security in the weeks prior to 9/11, etc. They are interesting issues relating to solving the details of 9/11 puzzle. I'm hoping that, for starters, we can all get to first base by reaching a rational scientific consensus about the fact that WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 were, obviously, demolished by explosives. Interestingly, Donald Trump correctly diagnosed the issue on 9/11-- based on his firsthand knowledge of the Twin Towers' architecture -- when he told reporters that, in his opinion, the steel columns of the Twin Towers could only have been destroyed by explosives (i.e., "bombs.") Dan Rather also called the WTC7 demolition accurately on 9/11.

Chris, I'm no fan of the DHS surveillance state, or of police harassment of peaceful dissenters, but the issue with Trump's cult has more to do with protecting democracy from fascism. Trumpsters have been threatening U.S. government and law enforcement officials, and even violently attacking the U.S. Congress (on January 6th.) Is it inappropriate to demonize a political movement that wants to burn down the Reichstag and terrorize a democratic government?

Sure, Ben, especially the movements that involve violently invading the U.S. Capitol in order to hang the Vice President and subvert the results of a Presidential election. It's totally unfair to demonize such anti-establishment, Trumplicon idealism, eh? 🤥

Mr. Lifton, Please dispense with your deflective, ad hominem slurs about my medical specialty, and kindly answer my specific science questions (above) about the 9/11 evidence. My questions have heuristic, educational value, especially for people, like yourself, who haven't studied, or understood, the WTC data. That is why I posted them for you and others. Regrettably, if I were tutoring you in the physics of 9/11, you would currently get an "F." As for using Wikipedia and the NIST Report as references, surely, you jest. Do you really not know that Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable in matters pertaining to U.S. military and intelligence ops? If you don't believe me, try reading Wikipedia's version of the JFK assassination! It reads like the Warren Commission Report. Their version of 9/11 is similarly absurd. As for the belated Bush/Cheney NIST report on the WTC demolitions, it is a pseudo-scientific fraud. The NIST authors didn't even pretend to explain the observed abrupt free fall demolition of WTC7 on 9/11. Nor did they do a forensic/arson examination of the WTC debris, or even acknowledge the obvious-- visible and audible-- serial explosions that demolished the WTC towers in broad daylight! They also refused to publish the parameters used in their bogus computer "simulation" of the WTC1 and WTC2 demolitions. How can the validity of their computer "simulation" be confirmed without the parameters?! In essence, they used what a computer programmer friend of mine used to call the "Modified Output Technique"-- making up some fictitious numbers to achieve a computerized free fall collapse. I presume that you are familiar with the history of Nobel Laureate physicist Luis Alvarez being recruited to concoct a pseudo-scientific explanation for the backward trajectory of JFK's head on 11/22/63? The cellophane-wrapped melon propulsion theory? As for the NIST non-explanation of the WTC7 demolition, if you study architectural history, you will learn that office fires don't cause the abrupt, symmetrical, free fall demolition of steel skyscrapers into their own footprints. Historically, steel skyscrapers burn for hours-- even days-- without collapsing, and, if they do collapse, it happens in a gradual, partial, asymmetrical pattern. You have made a name for yourself by examining evidence in the JFK case.. Try examining the evidence of serial explosions (on the film above, and in suppressed witness reports) that explosively pulverized hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete into high pressure pyroclastic flows over Manhattan during the demolitions of the Twin Towers. Also study the melting point of steel, and the temperatures required to liquefy steel-- which can be seen cascading from the WTC towers during the 9/11 demolitions. Burning jet fuel cannot liquefy steel. Nor was there sufficient jet fuel to soften and obliterate the entire steel substructures of those skyscrapers.

I thought Trump already had a Special Master... 🤥

When Putin and his thugs do a Frank Olson on one of their critics, they're never subtle about it. It reminds me of the case of the guy who fell out of a 6th floor bathtub in Kiev a few years ago. Or serving Litvinenko plutonium tea.

Ben, This new NYT article is almost identical to Benedict Carey's popular NYT series in the summer of 2008 about the use of psychotropics in teens. I spoke to Carey at the time, and he used me as a reference in his July 12, 2008 article on the subject of Big Pharma and the psychiatric establishment. Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties - The New York Times (nytimes.com) As for psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, alcohol and exercise can have major effects on mental health, but there is more to the neuroscience of mental illness than physical fitness, alcohol use, and glucose levels.

Dead wrong, Ben. Trump's comments at the Ellipse about taking down the magnetometers wasn't hearsay evidence. Hutchinson was a firsthand witness of Trump's riot-promoting staging at the Ellipse. If you had watched the Congressional J6 hearings (rather than the Fox spin) you would know that. Cassidy Hutchinson was with Trump and his staff at the Ellipse when the shocking comments were made. And she was also privvy to the 10 AM briefing of Trump, Meadows, and Ornato about the police reports that the mob was armed. And Hutchinson was, in fact, testifying under oath-- under penalty of perjury-- unlike Tony Ornato, who has erased his J6 texts and ducked testifying under oath. You're, obviously, still in denial about Trump's (and Ornato's) serious J6 crimes against the United States. Why?

Ben, How many in the Trump mob were arrested and searched for weapons at the Capitol on January 6th? Are you still not aware that most of them were only identified on film and arrested later? And, again, why did Trump want security to take down the magnetometers-- after he was told by 10 AM that the mob was armed-- when he said, "They're not here to harm me?" Are you trying to argue that Trump and Ornato were not told that the mob was armed?

Geez, Ben. How many times have you repeated this same old bogus trope? Explain why Trump wanted the security guards to "take down the magnetometers" at the Ellipse on January 6th. What were the magnetometers for? Are you trying to claim that Trump and Ornato weren't warned by 10 AM that the mob was armed? If so, you, obviously, didn't pay attention to the J6 hearings.

In the 1960s and early 70s, in Denver, it was a HUGE scandal if some yahoo brought a knife to school. And a homicide was major, frontpage news. Nowadays, I read about all of the daily metro area homicides and make a mental note about the locations.

The most damning thing I've heard about Ornato is that he knew by 10 AM on January 6th that Trump's mob was armed, but he did nothing to protect Pence, Pelosi, or the Congress. In fact, his only intervention was to try to have Pence removed from the Capitol before the election could be certified. Then he and his co-conspirators deleted their texts, after being told to preserve them.

Gee, Jeff, we haven't heard anything from you about Trump since you were busy denying Trump's January 6th coup attempt earlier this year-- before the J6 hearings revealed all of the damning evidence. I'm going to respond to your latest bizarre comments in red, below. Jeff wrote: It’s almost two years since the last U.S. federal election and Trump remains the number one topic of conversation and public hysterics. How could this be? Well, it could have to do with all of the current investigations into Trump's criminal activities, by Congress, the Fulton County DA, NY DA, and DOF/FBI/NARA records case. Just a thought. I would wager that no American public figure has ever faced such vast cascades of flung mud: major accusations of malign foreign influence, major accusations of election chicanery, major accusations of financial impropriety, two impeachments, continual federal and state level investigation… all amplified to level 10 by an endless parade of hostile political, bureaucratic, and especially media mouthpieces. I'll accept your wager and double it, on the grounds that no American public figure has ever engaged in such widespread fraudulence and criminality-- collusion with a hostile foreign power to gain public office in 2016, massive election chicanery in 2020, the staging of a violent coup attempt on January 6th, long-term tax fraud, emoluments violations, and illegal handling of classified government documents. It looks from the outside that a pertinent motivating issue is that Trump, unbelievably, remains a potent political force and all the flung mud only makes his supporters dig in deeper rather than abandon the cause. How could this be? Why do Trump’s political opponents continue to fling mud when it has been an ineffective if not counter-productive strategy? It isn't "mud," it's truth, and justice. Trump is a criminal who needs to be held accountable for his crimes against American democracy and society. The fact that he still controls the Republican Party makes this all the more imperative. His sociopathic conduct has only been worsened by the fact that he hasn't been held accountable previously. In effect, the Republican Party has enabled his criminal conduct. The first inklings of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane file, directed at the Trump campaign beginning August 2016, began to creep into the light in late 2017, notably in several prescient articles by the late Robert Parry. Although the direct mechanics of this program are not yet publicly known, it has been established that the Clinton campaign, and possibly the Obama White House, worked with partisan assets in the FBI and DOJ to disrupt the Trump campaign, including planting stories alleging untoward influence by an adversary government. The brief Sussmann hearing a few months ago effectively confirmed that program. Trump filed a lawsuit last March directed at persons affiliated with Crossfire Hurricane (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157.1.0.pdf). Trump's Russia-gate scandal came to light in 2017 after the FBI began questioning Michael Flynn about his illegal December 2016 phone calls with Kisylak, to undermine U.S. sanctions for Russian meddling in our 2016 election. Robert Mueller was appointed as a Special Prosecutor only after Trump tried to shut down the FBI investigation of Flynn by firing James Comey and Andrew McCabe in 2017. It had nothing to do with Crossfire Hurricane, Steele, or Sussman. What Trump’s supporters are saying is that the documents stashed at Mar-A-Lago were all relevant to the Crossfire Hurricane file, and were declassified by Trump via legal executive decisions - which is why the affidavit had to rely on the Espionage Act. What Trump supporters are you referring to? And what executive decisions? On the contrary, 18 former Trump officials have already debunked Trump's claim about de-classifying the documents at Mar-a-Lago. The concerns about espionage, apparently, have to do with Trump holding Top Secret documents about clandestine informants. They are saying that the FBI office responsible for the document raid is the same office that ran the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. If this becomes confirmed, it seems the massive partisan divide will be ever more entrenched and the political warfare ever more intensified. The "massive partisan divide" is a Trump media chimera, used to deflect attention away from Trump's felonious mishandling of classified documents. He was given multiple opportunities to obey the law. When word started in late 2017 that the Trump campaign had been placed under FISA surveillance via a sketchy predicate during the 2016 campaign, it appeared as potentially one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. It may yet achieve such status. It appears to have occurred in a milieu whereby Clinton was assured the presidency and so these machinations would never come to light. The decision to publish, in early 2017, the Intelligence Community assessment of malign foreign influence appears to have been part of an effort to upend Trump early in his term - as publicly acknowledged by John McCain - also confident of success. It was not successful, and served to ultimately reveal Crossfire Hurricane and the massive mess caused by all of this continues to paralyze U.S. politics present and future. Disclaimer: I do not admire Trump, support his policies, or even really care or fixate on him. One has to follow the facts, wherever they lead. Trump should have been easily handled politically, not through skullduggery. It’s really late Roman Empire stuff going on. What pettifoggery! Any alleged "skullduggery" about Trump's crimes is, basically, telling the truth about his conduct. It's entirely warranted. And the FISA "Obama-gate"/Crossfire Hurricane Trumpaganda has been repeatedly debunked. Meanwhile, we are just learning more details about how Bill Barr lied about the Mueller Report, and blocked Trump's prosecution for multiple counts of obstruction of justice, as detailed in the Mueller Report.

Well, I'm astonished by David Lifton's ignorance of Newtonian physics, and also by his surprisingly scurrilous ad hominem nonsense here, so I'll respond to both. First of all, I was recruited by Professor Phillip Bray at Brown University to tutor undergraduate students at Brown in physics in the mid-70s, after achieving a perfect score on Bray's Physics 101 final exam. I also had a perfect Physics score on MCATs before graduating from Harvard Medical School. So there are those minor details about my knowledge of basic physics. And, incidentally, a knowledge of basic physics, and a capacity for basic empiricism, is sufficient to properly recognize the WTC demolitions on 9/11, which is why I originally asked Michael Griffith if he had studied physics. But, let's skip over Lifton's ad hominem nonsense and look at the physics of the WTC demolitions. These are questions that I would like Lifton, Griffith, and other 9/11 Truth deniers to answer, without changing the subject or resorting to ad hominem deflections. 1) What was the structural resistance to the observed virtual free fall collapses of WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7-- i.e., to the free fall acceleration of gravity? 2) What rapidly destroyed the entire steel substructures of those massive steel skyscrapers on 9/11, resulting in the observed near free fall collapses into their own footprints-- without gradual, step-wise, assymetrical, gravitational pancaking of floors? 3) What liquefied the steel that was flowing "like a foundry" at Ground Zero? 4) What explosively pulverized hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete into high pressure pyroclastic flows over lower Manhattan? 5) What caused the serial explosions that brought WTC1 and WTC2 down-- clearly visible and audible on extant film--and also reported by multiple witnesses inside of the buildings?

Ben is right about one thing. Trump has been living rent free in my head lately. He does it by incessantly evading consequences for his misconduct. The only time Trump told the truth all year was when he was pleading the 5th.

Yes, John Ratcliffe is another one of those flying monkeys Trump eventually appointed to positions of responsibility in his administration, after the semi-reputable people abandoned the Trumptanic. Ratcliffe belongs in Trump's flying monkey menagerie with Mike Pompeo, Chris Miller, Kash Patel, Chad Wolf, Tony Ornato, Peter Navarro, et.al. They were all selected mainly for their loyalty, sycophancy, spinelessness, and willingness to lie on Donald's behalf.

This is a total non sequitur, folks, but it's too good to ignore. Django Unchained does an uncanny Donald Trump impression... 🤥

Ben, I think this one's for you. 🤥

Speaking of cudgels, why was Trump hoarding and refusing to return classified documents about clandestine human intelligence sources?!