W. Niederhut

Dennis, I hadn't heard of cardiologist, Dr. Peter McCullough, but his medical credentials look solid. Here's one critique of McCullough's claims about COVID treatments and the vaccine data.* I noticed that McCullough's poly-pharmaceutical COVID treatment regimen, by his own admission, is not based on randomized clinical trials. Nor is he an expert in infectious diseases. * https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-covid-19-vaccine-holocaust-the-latest-antivaccine-messaging/

When I think of Fox News and the JFK assassination, the story that comes to mind is Bill O'Reilly blathering a few years ago about being present when George De Mohrenschildt allegedly committed suicide. But here's wishing for the best from Fox, while expecting the worst. Congratulations to Oliver and Jim! Where is the rest of the U.S. mainstream media?

Pete, As it turned out, Trump didn't really need Rosen's help to convince his cult that the election was corrupt, and that they needed to march on the Capitol to block the certification of Biden's election on January 6th. He had ample sales support from the right wing media and Republican members of Congress. And now his favorite GOP sales associates are pushing the narrative that Trump's January 6th coup attempt was really a "Deep State" plot involving FBI informants (whose information, obviously, failed to protect Congress from the attempted coup!) War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Terrorists are tourists. GOP's Ron Johnson bashed as 'shock jock' over latest Capitol riot conspiracy theory https://www.rawstory.com/ron-johnson-capitol-riot-2654380029/

Ben, Valid theories are, by definition, explanatory frameworks for all of the facts, which are not refuted by any established facts. It's a very high bar. A theory that ignores the essential facts in the case is like a car with no motor or wheels. It takes up space (in a driveway or on a forum) and is, fundamentally, useless. How does your "Deep State" theory about January 6th explain all of the essential facts about Trump and his associates manipulating their fans to attack Congress and block the certification of the election? Your theoretical January 6th automobile has no motor and only one wheel-- i.e., evidence that the FBI may have had some informants in the ranks of the Proud Boys. But, as I pointed out a few pages ago, there is a more rational interpretation of your FBI wheel. To wit, why did Christopher Wray's FBI fail to protect Congress from Trump's mob? Did the Trump administration suppress the FBI intelligence, or did Wray's people fail to provide it?

Ben, Did this Alberts guy, in fact, breach the Capitol? From your initial post, it sounded like he was accosted by a police officer somewhere in D.C. before fleeing the scene. Did you see any Capitol police chasing fleeing insurrectionists during the 1/6 assault on the Capitol? I must have missed that footage. For the most part, the Capitol police were in defensive formations, backing up, trying to hold the line and protect the entrances to the Capitol from the attacking mob. Meanwhile, your response to the information I posted about Trump's associates-- Giuliani, Bannon, Roger Stone, et.al.-- convening on January 5th at the Willard Hotel was to simply attack the messenger, Seth Abramson. You didn't address the data Abramson presented. (BTW, I happen to believe that Abramson's analysis of Trump's ties to the Kremlin is, essentially, accurate. Russ Baker was another investigative journalist who wrote as early as 2016 about Trump's multi-decade business deals with Felix Sater and Russian oligarchs.) So, I'll finally tell you my theory about January 6th. It differs significantly from yours. 1) I think Trump was desperate to remain in office, and deliberately planned to subvert the certification of the election by Congress on January 6th. (In fact, we know that he told the DOJ on December 27th, "Just say the election was corrupt and I'll take care of the rest.") 2) He stirred up mass outrage in his base with his Big Lie about election fraud, then he and his associates organized a march on the Capitol to disrupt the January 6th certification. 3) Trump and numerous associates deliberately worked their mob into a violent frenzy on January 6th before the planned march to the Capitol. They spoke of "fighting like hell," "kicking some ass," "trial by combat," and obvious rhetoric about fighting to "save the country," etc. Trump was, apparently, delighted to watch the assault on the Capitol police. He called it a "lovefest." 4) I believe that Trump directed his gofer at the Pentagon, Chris Miller, to block the deployment of National Guard troops to assist the Capitol police and protect the Capitol from his mob. 5) An ancillary Trump plan may have involved creating a pretext to remove Mike Pence from the Capitol, in order to block the certification of Biden's election. And with 5) this thread has come full circle.

Well, this is very upsetting. I continue to believe that these Capitol police were set up--like sitting ducks-- for that violent mob attack. Hopefully, we'll eventually learn the truth.

Ben, As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, "You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts." I posted a number of facts about Trump, his January 5th Willard Hotel associates, and the January 6th attack on Congress last night, but they haven't, apparently, been incorporated into your paradigm about the incident.* And, as I said earlier in this discussion, the Buffalo Horn guy appears to be an erstwhile "straw man"-- an atypical outlier in the 1/6 incident. Unlike many attackers, he had no military or police training, and is not someone who was a member of the attacking militias-- Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, et.al. Yet, you continue to insist that he is somehow representative of the attackers. As for Alberts, what crime did he commit? He, apparently, never trespassed on the Capitol grounds or assaulted the police. Perhaps that's why he isn't in jail. (Occam's Razor.) * Case in point, related to the topic of this thread. Trump has actually insisted that the January 6th attack on the U.S. Congress was a peaceful "lovefest!" His Republican apologists have even referred to the violent attackers as "tourists." That is simply not true. These so-called "tourists" were physically assaulting the Capitol police, spraying them with toxic chemicals, and ransacking Congress, in search of the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, in a deliberate effort to prevent the certification of the election and possibly assault or even murder them. Many of these attackers had professional military and police training. Some were members of organized militias with radio equipment and contacts with Trump associates. And let's not forget about the inflammatory January 6th speeches by Trump, Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Don, Jr., Alex Jones, and Republican Congressman Mo Brooks, who wore body armor while urging the crowd to march down to the Capitol and "kick some ass." There are also disturbing reports of apparent "war councils" by Trump's associates on January 5th. These meetings included the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Don, Jr., Alex Jones, and others. Perhaps these Trump associates are the "agent provocateurs" Benjamin is referring to. 🤥 https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/major-breaking-news-team-trump-had

Dennis, You and I have seen eye-to-eye on a number of issues on this forum, but this isn't one of them. (And I'm not fan of Big Pharma. I've even been quoted in the New York Times articles during the past 15 years as a critic of Big Pharma.) IMO, Dr. Fauci was correct when he said yesterday that un-vaccinated Americans are driving the latest (Delta) COVID surge. The Delta outbreak in the U.S. took off in early-to-mid June. This mutational wave is similar to what happened during the 1918 influenza pandemic. The Delta variant hot spots in the U.S. today are strongly correlated (geographically) with low vaccination rates. Not surprising. Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Florida are a big part of the surge. (50% of all new cases in the U.S. recently occurred in Florida and Texas, alone!) The recent Israeli data showing relatively high percentages of breakthrough Delta variant infections in people who received the Pfizer vaccine is partly a function of the fact that the vast majority of Israelis are vaccinated, and early. But morbidity and mortality rates remain extremely low in fully vaccinated people. (The Israeli data may be an indication that the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine is wearing off after several months.)

Chris, I'm, certainly, in favor of open, honest discourse, but I also believe that one of the most toxic fallacies in U.S. political discourse in recent years has been so-called "both siderism"-- i.e., the dubious notion that the truth must, necessarily, be equidistant between opposing, partisan viewpoints. How can that, possibly, be true in a milieu where our former president has told over 30,000 well-documented lies during his four year White House tenure? (Lies which were incessantly amplified by his Fox News echo chamber.) In fact, Trump lied, repeatedly, on a daily basis. He's still lying. Author Steve Tesich coined the term, "post truth," to describe such a political milieu, where a commitment to telling the truth is abandoned in favor of appeals to emotion and tribalism. But, surely, the truth is not located halfway between a lie and the truth, is it? In such a milieu, "both siderism" is simply a fallacy. Case in point, related to the topic of this thread. Trump has actually insisted that the January 6th attack on the U.S. Congress was a peaceful "lovefest!" His Republican apologists have even referred to the violent attackers as "tourists." That is simply not true. These so-called "tourists" were physically assaulting the Capitol police, spraying them with toxic chemicals, and ransacking Congress, in search of the Vice President and the Speaker of the House, in a deliberate effort to prevent the certification of the election and possibly assault or even murder them. Many of these attackers had professional military and police training. Some were members of organized militias with radio equipment and contacts with Trump associates. And let's not forget about the inflammatory January 6th speeches by Trump, Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Don, Jr., Alex Jones, and Republican Congressman Mo Brooks, who wore body armor while urging the crowd to march down to the Capitol and "kick some ass." There are also disturbing reports of apparent "war councils" by Trump's associates on January 5th. These meetings included the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Don, Jr., Alex Jones, and others. Perhaps these Trump associates are the "agent provocateurs" Benjamin is referring to. 🤥 https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/major-breaking-news-team-trump-had

It's a different can of worms, Steven, but I share your suspicion about those 2016 vote tallies-- especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, where a combined total of only 80,000 votes threw the Electoral College vote tally to Trump, in an election where Trump lost the popular vote by 2%. And the tallies in those states were oddly inconsistent with both pre-election and exit polls. The conservative post-election media spin was that the pollsters were idiots. My impression was that, if some clever hackers of voter registration data bases (domestic or foreign) wanted to throw the 2016 EC to Trump, they knew precisely how to do it. And we learned later that voter data bases in many U.S. states had, in fact, been hacked by Russians. Perhaps someone in the Trump campaign had shared sophisticated polling data with those skilled hackers. Just a theory... 🤥 If I recall correctly, a political science professor in Wisconsin calculated that at least 23,000 legal Democratic votes in Milwaukee alone were not counted in 2016. Tallies in Democratic Detroit were also suspiciously low. But I digress. Back to the January 6th coup attempt and the guys with military and police training who stormed the Capitol with chemical weapons and zip ties-- presumably for the purpose of physically apprehending members of Congress and the Vice President.

And yet, Trump recently pardoned Steve Bannon for grifting, didn't he, Benjamin? What do you make of that? Was it just professional courtesy, or evidence of an ongoing working relationship between those two grifters? Obviously, there are still many unanswered questions about the planning of the January 6th insurrection. For example, who warned Republican Congressman Mo "Let's Kick Some Ass" Brooks to wear body armor on January 6th? Brooks, obviously, anticipated violence at the Capitol. Did Brooks and his Republican colleagues warn their Democratic colleagues or the Capitol Police about the anticipated violence? What was Trump's associate Roger Stone, of Brooks Brothers Riot fame, doing with the Oath Keepers who attacked the Capitol on January 6th? Was Roger Stone in contact with Trump or any of his close associates? Also, regarding your suspicion about a possible "Deep State" plot involving FBI contacts with insurrectionists like Buffalo Horn guy, I have a different question. To wit, if the FBI had informants in the ranks of the insurrectionists, why was Capitol security so piss poor on January 6th? Shouldn't the FBI have warned Trump, Congress, and the Capitol Police that trouble was brewing? Rather than a Deep State plot to undermine Trump, it seems like, if anything, there was a "Deep State" failure on January 6th to protect Congress and the certification of Biden's election.

Since this "56 Year" thread has become the place to post miscellany on this forum, I thought I would post a recent headline that is probably my favorite of the past month in our vast M$M/social media. It's the title of a July 21st thread by a "Mrs. Claw" at the Democratic Underground. Since it's about our celebrated American cosmonaut Jeff Bezos, who was born in 1964, a case could be made that it qualifies as an "inevitable end result of our last 56 years." 🤥 Mama Don't Let Your Bezos Grow Up To Be A Cowboy https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215647600

Benjamin, You often mention the importance of keeping an open mind, but I can't help noticing that you rarely seem to consider the commentaries and references posted in these discussions-- almost as if your mind is already made up. In the cases of the January 6th insurrectionists, have you studied their own statements in court about their motives for attacking Congress? They all point to keeping Trump in power and blocking the certification of the election as the motive for their attacks. The fact that the Buffalo Horn guy is, apparently, psychotic doesn't imply that all of Trump's January 6th attackers were similarly impaired, though, admittedly, they hardly seem like paragons of mental health. From what I have read about Ashli Babbitt, for instance, I wonder about manic tendencies and/or ADHD. She was, apparently, prone to rage attacks-- like once ramming her car into the car of her boyfriend's ex-wife, or angrily trying to break through the door of the House chamber. As for the obvious explosive demolitions of the World Trade Center buildings, as mentioned, it's not a question of if, but how the explosives were expertly placed in those buildings. It happened. I don't know who did the job or how many man-hours the job entailed, but I do know that the job was done. Do you follow? There's an analogy with the case of JFK's assassination. It's obvious that the fatal head shot that killed JFK was fired from the front and to the right of the limo. We can conclude that much without knowing precisely who did the job, or how it was accomplished.

Theater of the absurd? The guys who attacked the Capitol on January 6th must have been very good actors, indeed. They were even willing to violently assault and injure 150 Capitol police officers, gouge out their eyes with flagpoles, and spray them with toxic chemicals! As for 9/11, I'm somewhat reluctant to delve into the topic on this forum, but, if you want to go down the rabbit hole, it might be helpful to work backward from the scientific fact that the buildings were explosively demolished. The question is no longer if, but how that was accomplished. Unfortunately, I have more questions than answers. Who was in charge of WTC security prior to 9/11? Who had access to the buildings? Apparently, repair work was being done on the central elevator shafts of the WTC buildings by a company called ACE, and a company called LVI had contracted to remove the WTC asbestos. (Oddly, one of the WTC tenants prior to 9/11 was Komatsu, a company that produces high-tech thermitic explosives used in building demolitions.) Demolitions expert Tom Sullivan has pointed out that the WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7 demolitions exhibited all of the characteristics of expertly controlled building demolitions, and that the demolitions could have been readily accomplished by people who had access to the elevator shafts. See, for example: http://www1.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/529-tom-sullivan-eso

Perhaps Jeff Bezos couldn't afford to send a film critic to Cannes... 🤥

Indeed, Steve. And yet, according to Mark, it's now, apparently, in danger of being shut down for copyright infringement. It seems somewhat Orwellian. I wonder if this has this happened to any other "Deep Politics" type forums in the U.S.

You're dead wrong again, Mark, in your latest (of several) recent off topic, ad hominem attacks on me in our discussions. How ironic that you would accuse me of adopting your own methods. The truth is that I'm an issues guy. I rarely ever engage in ad hominem attacks on anyone here, with the exception of occasional forum jokes about Lance Payette, Fred Littwin, and Rob Wheeler during the past year or two. In your case, I'm generally curious about what prompted your sudden interest in the subject of this historic forum being policed and, possibly, shut down. Any particularly concerning threads? And I'll ask again. Do you know anyone, in particular, who might be interested in shutting down the Education Forum on the pretext of copyright infringement? Lone Nutters? Anti-9/11 Truthers? Frustrated cognitive infiltrators? Instead of attacking me, kindly answer the questions. (After our strange debates about Fletcher Prouty and the NIST Report, I won't hold my breath.)

Mark, Interesting, thoughtful warning. Is your call for more strict "policing" of the forum possibly related to your recently professed abhorrence of censorship in the U.S.? Also, do you happen to know anyone, in particular, who might be interested in shutting down this forum-- using the pretext of "copyright infringement?" Just asking for a friend. 🤥

I wonder if that's where the term, "go go girl" originated. Meanwhile, just for the record, I read the New York Times and the Washington Post every day and, to my knowledge, there hasn't been a single word published in either newspaper all summer about Oliver Stone or JFK Revisited. Why am I not surprised?

Ben, IMO, your obsessional focus on the Buffalo Guy is a variation on the old-fashioned straw man argument-- a deflection from the essence of the January 6th insurrection by violent Trump supporters to block certification of the U.S. election. Regarding the singular case itself, It's often difficult to identify the delusions (and/or hallucinations) that motivate psychotic people to do weird things. I once treated a patient at the Colorado State Hospital who walked into a library and shot a man she didn't know because voices of "the village people" told her to shoot him. As for your question about the WTC towers during the weeks prior to 9/11, you need to do some research. Who told you that "no one noticed" any unusual activity in the towers prior to 9/11?

Ben, Paul Manafort has long worked for the Kremlin in Ukraine and Europe. As I recall, he retroactively declared himself a paid foreign agent/lobbyist in late 2016 (or early 2017) shortly before Trump's Russia-gate excrement hit the oscillating device. Then he repeatedly stonewalled and lied about his 2016 Russia contacts during the Mueller investigation-- even after he had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of his plea bargain. He was directly reproached by the judge in the case for his perjury and perfidy. But he stonewalled with the knowledge that he had a Get Out of Jail Free card. Trump floated a pardon to Manafort during the Mueller investigation-- a blatant case of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Remember when they finally had to restrict Manafort's contacts with other witnesses? Among other illegal activities, Manafort told Rick Gates during the investigation, "We'll be taken care of" (i.e., by Trump.) As for Buffalo Guy, I haven't followed the case very closely, but he appears to be suffering from Schneiderian symptoms of schizophrenia. Speaking as a psychiatrist, I believe he'll be declared NGRI (Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity) for his misguided involvement in the January 6th insurrection.

Benjamin's theory that the Trumpster's January 6th attack on Congress was possibly some sort of Deep State conspiracy reminds me of the endless iterations of Trump's "Obama-gate," "Spy-gate," "Nunes Memo" conspiracy theories blaming the "Deep State" for the Trump Campaign's (Manafort, Gates, Flynn, Don, Jr., et.al.) numerous, documented contacts with Kremlin officials (Kilimnik, Veselnitskaya, Lavrov, et.al.) in 2016. It was, essentially, an effort to blame anyone but Trump for Trump's crimes.